How sad is this?

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The book (on which this movie was based on) is supposed to be groundbreaking, fusing poetry and mystery. Judging by the few snatches of poetry allowed in the movie and some interesting dialogue, that might be true. The movie, however, fails on so many points - maybe only the cinematography is not bad - that it's useless to enumerate them. Even the graphic sex scenes get boring after awhile. Most of the actors are not convincing, except for two: Abbie Cornish who plays the captivating young poet Mickey, and in a more limited way, Marton Csokas as Nick. Cornish steals the scene whenever she shows up. Otherwise, and specially as a mystery, the movie completely fails.

Pretending to be open-minded is easy nowadays - see a lousy movie with some unhetero-sexual scenes in and You're in with the IN-crowd ... One day they'll probably let necrophiliacs marry too ! ("Married with Bundy" !) This is one of a bunch of movies trying to "normalize" homosexuality and in this lesbian case show how sickening and dangerous men are. The only problem with these obvious intentions are that the movie itself becomes sickening with prejudices and dangerous for true movies whether made by or about lesbians ... I haven't seen many, but even the slightly naive "Better Than Chocolate" (1999) is far better than this and the strangle-orgasm + a detective with close companion is twisted & copied - it can be found 7 years earlier om "Rising Sun" with Snipes/Connery !!!A terrible mistake not to have seen the plot mainly stolen from Michael Crichtons "Rising Sun", but nowadays anything which seems very woman-centralized gets hailed as a "brave new girl" ...No, I felt the acting was artificially "correct" and the story tried to be light and funny at times, but it collapsed mostly and a heavy rotten biased smell remained ... But the women seemed more potent than the men and refreshingly bed-active ! :-)LOLJay Thomson680 wrote : *******************************************************************And what was the point of Jill's closing line: "Forget the bitch"? Porter didn't mention that. Was its inclusion to comfort the (conservative, hetero, etc) viewer that the dangerous dyke relationship is over, and we can all sleep nice and easy. Worrying stuff, indeed.******************************************************************* *******************No, it's not a conspiracy to comfort non-homosexual or other strange people ... It's very simple - Jill says to herself (like a true private dick, erh, I mean dyke) that she should find another woman and forget the love for Diana that still lingered on after she broke up ... but "Worrying stuff" ? Only for people who watches "little doctor on the prairie" !

...forget it. You will see lesbian "situations" but NO actual sex. Sorry. Lord knows I was! Kelly McGillis is one very sexy 'older' woman, but in bed, her talents were UNUSED. The story is good, the movie is worth renting for it. But if you are looking for honest-to-God woman-on-woman sex, you will not find it here.

Hmm, not bad: this film has a lot going for it, the principal asset being Susie Porter, who is assured but vulnerable, believable and very sexy in the lead. There is a pretty good chemistry between Kelly McGillis, who is always worth watching, regardless of whether or not she's playing steamy sex scenes with another woman, and she also conveys a dangerous ambivalence, for a good reason.Some of the dialogue is pretty good, and the poetry scene is always welcome as a setting for a film (only other one I can think of is Love Jones, which is in a diametrically opposite milieu). Unfortunately, some of the dialogue is pretty awful, mostly involving Kelly McGillis character's husband, who was completely unconvincing to me throughout. The ending was a surprise to me, but I decided it wasn't due to my being slow, more that the film simply hadn't led up to it. Still, to be fair, there may have been some clues earlier, which are touched on at the end.Worth it for Susie Porter, for the whodunnit which is quite well sustained, and (let's be honest) if love scenes between two very attractive women tickle your fancy...