flickhead Alan Rudolph is a poor man's Robert Altman with a Henry Jaglom production value–and yet he manages to entice excellent talent to his projects. His films have never fared well at the box office, and only two (Mrs. Parker and the follow-up Afterglow) received much critical acclaim. So how he managed to spend eight million dollars on this mess is anyone's guess. It was obviously shot (predominantly) in a single location, and the wardrobe and set decoration is hardly extravagant to have merited high budgeting. While likely scripted, it has all the discipline of a free community improv class. It's perhaps apt that a movie about masturbation should prove so masturbatory in its inception: the cast are allowed free reign to over-reach in almost every scene. There is no sense that the characters are true to the time frame portrayed on screen, and yet it is not completely pointless. Some of the improvisations work, and most don't, but there is some comedy to be had in the less over-wrought interactions. When it tries, it fails, but when it fails it sometimes triumphs. I only wish there had been more happy accidents–like the camera being in the right place to capitalize on the focus of the scene. It is sadly rarely so.For a much better take on a similar subject see Joaquin Oristrell's Unconscious, instead. For a better use of an ensemble cast in a barely scripted acting exercise, see Nicholas Roeg's Insignificance. The only honest performance is Neve Campbell's, and the only subtlety is that of Terrence Howard. Nick Nolte seems like he's acting in two different movies, Alan Cumming deserves more camera time, and Jeremy Davies is completely against type.Rudolph's greatest success is that this film released in 2002 looks like a 1970s European skin flic. I am probably over-crediting him, here. But the film has its moments. It's probably best to run in the background while you do something else and cross it off your list.

MBunge If a pretentious, softcore pornographer took a single college class in human sexuality and got a D+ in it, that sort of person might enjoy Intimate Affairs.Set in 1929, this movie purports to tell the story of a group of friends and acquaintances who set out to explore human sexuality by talking about it until they're blue in the face. And while it's made to a standard of professional competence, this is a very silly and poorly written film. It's filled with two-dimensional characters engaging in some of the least provocative and least erotic sex talk you've ever heard. It's visually pedestrian and there's little plot or real character development even attempted, let alone achieved.For all that, though, there's some fairly good acting here. Nick Nolte plays Faldo, the rich man funding the sex research of disgraced college professor Edgar (Dermot Mulroney), and whatever you though of Nolte before, you'll admire his ability to take this film's ridiculous dialog and overwrought direction and create a believable human being out of it. Tuesday Weld manages to take the one-note character of Faldo's wife and turn her mixed up Russian and Brooklyn accents into the mark of a woman who's being trying to make herself into something else so long, she no longer remembers what she started out as. Alan Cumming as a frustrated artist whose sexuality is far more deviant than the rest of the conventionally minded group is also having a blast in every scene. Robin Tunney is also appealing in her simple but nuanced performance as a woman who thinks she's more sexually liberated than she really is.But, there's also some really bad acting as well. Mulroney appears genuinely flustered at his inability to do anything with the poorly conceived character of Edgar. He's more like a man tied up in a straitjacket than an actor playing a role, just trying to find some way to connect all the things about Edgar that don't fit together. Neve Campbell gives perhaps her worst performance as the shy virgin hired to be a stenographer to the story's flat and disconnected sexual discussions. If you didn't know any better, you'd think she'd never really acted before and got the job because she was banging a producer. And even though the other actors do adequate work, their characters are either so slight or so amateurishly calculated for affect that it's impossible to take them seriously.I really can't imagine what most of the fine actors in this cast were thinking when they took this job. They can't have been paid very much and they can't have actually thought these roles would do anything for their craft or their careers. Maybe they owed writer/director Alan Rudolph money, or maybe he has a ping pong table in his basement they all wanted to use.You do get to see Julie Delpy and Robin Tunney topless in this film, as well as viewing Dermot Mulroney's behind and getting a furtive glance at his exposed package. But if none of that trips your trigger, I'm not sure there's any reason to watch Intimate Affairs. You can certainly find these actors doing good work in much better films.

Dragoneyed363 I was really hyped about Intimate Affairs. I mean, looking at the cast, there is a wide spread of reputable actors and actresses that I have loved or liked in one film or another. Dermot Mulroney, Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney, Alan Cumming, Terrence Howard, and Nick Nolte; they all have acting chops and I personally love Campbell and Cumming. I was let down, because this movie turned out to be just okay.It was not great, nor was it bad, but it was pretty darn bland. The characters lacked the ability to entertain, and the acting was robotic. While I found the script choice interesting, it was dull and simple, which for this film they needed to make the script a little more complex and captivating. The ending was not the best way to go, and I felt as if all the stars did not try their hardest. This movie was a big disappointment for me, but it was enjoyable to watch, and I am glad I had the chance to see it, but I don't plan on seeing it again.

soundso-1 It sure felt like a privilege to watch a film like that... Nothing like the average, fully predictable recipe-based product of the rather decaying modern American movie business. Unlike many recent films this one was actually based on real characters, let alone on real persons... I feel the objections expressed round here are exactly because of that: real people are not predictable, their "lines" are sometimes "blurring" the "clear" picture an average viewer -like myself- is used (or rather has been taught) to expect. Characters based on reality often make us feel a bit awkward form time to time. This, I think, is just because real persons are like that too... I give credit to the director for choosing an eternal question as his theme, and to most of the actors for achieving to convince me, not just act very well. It somehow feels natural to watch the characters, some almost bizarre, just being themselves. The power of confession -through experience, sharing and expression- is, I think, what could turn a sinner (even a puritan) to a saint. As for the desired equation (love=sex=eros?) it is not conclusively expressed, but then again, is there any human research that ever comes to a finite end?In my opinion, the above qualities form something of a rarity, a sheer luxury, so seldom permitted by showbiz moneymaking machine nowadays.