Benutzerrezensionen

The compulsive, neurotic, deranged and bi-sexual efficient and tough lawyer Evelyn Stephens (Tilda Swinton) is depending on an interview with the Governor to be appointed as a judge in the court of law. Her kleptomaniac sister Maddie Stephens (Amy Madigan) is finishing her PhD in UCLA. While waiting for her interview, Eve has a simultaneous affair with John (Clancy Brown) and the psychologist Renee (Karen Sillas), and helps her mean sister to leave the jail, arrested in a shoplifting.

"Female Perversions" is a weird movie with bizarre characters. The sad soundtrack and the photography are very beautiful and the interpretations of the cast are excellent. However, although being intriguing and provocative in some moments, the story never reaches a point and sometimes becomes boring. Further, although having naked women and many sex scenes, they are not erotic and does not excite, at least under the view of a man. I did not like this movie, but I recognize that it is a stylistic film with great performances. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Desejos Femininos" ("Female Desires")

Only to be left with ambivalence - at best. Perhaps it's a product of male perversions. Despite a few Name Talents, this is undergrad neo-feminist twaddle, low budget in every respect: The staging (though there are some interesting elements to some of the sets), the tortured emotions, the music, and most of all the symbolism. Honestly, I do try to appreciate Tilda Swinton's work - and I certainly did enjoy her performance in "Michael Clayton" (as a corrupt lawyer - does she have a problem with typecasting?), but even with long hair (a definite improvement), I still find her a little repellent. I suppose if I'm to be fair I'll give it a B+ for nudity, but beyond that there really isn't anything to recommend it. Go watch "Tommy" instead if you need tales of damaged children, and at least you'll be entertained.

Okay, so I've seen lots of films that are worse than this, but this film was much more annoying in some ways, because this could have been a good movie. There is some good talent in this film, and there are even a few scenes that I found to be quite good. However, far too often the film just drags along, and I found myself increasingly looking over at the nearest clock trying to figure out how much longer this movie would last.

The idea that a career driven woman finds herself disconnected from emotions, vacant in today's society, is the subject of at least one daytime television program daily. The presentation of Evelyn Stevens (Tilda Swinton, of Orlando fame) in Female Perversions, is not the sugar-coated world of The View, but a carefully crafted life-study (accurate to the minute details).

Evelyn is an attractive woman, she believes herself a beautiful one. She inappropriately wonders through a shop while trying on a revealing piece of underwear, but the only one available is a disinterested octogenarian. She is a competent attorney, yet she represents herself as a premier legal strategist. Her credit card is rejected while making the simplest of purchases, she drives a SAAB 900 Turbo-the whole thing is perfect.

Further insight to Evelyn's internal monsters are seen though the film's portrayal of her sister, Madelyn-the good soul to Evelyn's evil one. She has chosen a more bohemian existence, and calms her internal monsters through adventures in kleptomania.

Let's recap: Driven woman, faux life, dysfunctional family, bad credit cards, soon to be made a judge (with no one to tell, and no one who cares). There is only one place left for her to go.

To a deeply invested lesbian encounter. Where else can she go? Her entire life as it stands is moments from implosion. The realization that the new lawyer entering her firm (her ‘replacement') is prettier (Paulina Porizkova, no less), smarter, and likely more stable further pushes Evelyn to the inevitable.

Wonderfully cast with Amy Madigan (as the sister), Karen Sillas (as the Doctor/Lesbian love interest), and Clancy Brown (as the boyfriend) in a rarely seen beefcake role. Throw in Frances Fisher and Laila Robins for good measure.

Must for all art film fans. Highly recommended for the more mainstream tastes who like a small distraction now and then.

This is a terrific film about women struggling to discover a way to find and develop their identity. While some of the allusions and metaphors can be a bit heavy handed, they are effective.

Eve (Tilda Swinton) is a lawyer about to be nominated for a judgeship. While her professional life is as much as she could wish, her personal life is a mess. She is involved with an architect (male) and a psychotherapist, Renee. But she is unable to connect with either. Her upbringing, devotion to her work, and desperate desire for control have left her emotionally stunted, unable to make a real connection to anyone around her.

One day, her sister is picked up for shoplifting. Eve rides to her rescue, and spends several days in the middle of nowhere, with an exotic dancer, a young girl just entering puberty, and a brilliant but shattered friend.

Many critics hated this movie (most guides give it just 2 or 3 stars) but I think they couldn't get past Eve's coldness. But this movie is a study in coldness, in emotional death and rebirth. But it is not Eve who is reborn. See it and judge for yourself.

Tilda Swinton is a marvelous actress, but she's at a real loss here playing a high-powered attorney, operating under a mass of neuroses, who is on her way to becoming a judge yet sidelined by family issues. Adaptation of Louise Kaplan's book gets a quasi-arthouse treatment by director Susan Streitfeld, who wants desperately to make points out of symbolism but is far too heavy-handed in her approach to involve an audience. Amy Madigan does some solid work as Swinton's petty thief sister, but Swinton herself is impossible to get a grip on. Changing her hairstyles and overall appearance like a chameleon, Swinton is icy and aloof. There's a good actress under all this artifice, but Streitfeld is too concerned with showing off, and everyone suffers as a result. * from ****

Eve Stephens (Tilda Swinton) is a driven attorney about to become a judge. She uses her femininity to get what she wants and to rise to the top of her profession.

She has passions outside of work. She craves sexual satisfaction. Not emotional attachments mind you, but the satisfaction of satisfying sexual hunger. The difficulty in balancing the two is driving her mad, and makes for an excellent film about the role women play in the corporate world.

She is not satisfied with the executives in her firm; she also picks up Renee (Karen Sillas), a new psychiatrist in an elevator.

Her sister, Madelyn Stephens (Amy Madigan), fulfills her erotic desire by shoplifting. Eve is forced to deal with her problem to keep on track for the judgeship.

She also has problems dealing wither her replacement (Paulina Porizkova), who is considerably more attractive.

I am not sure about the fantasy sequences with what I guess to be an Earthwoman. There was enough interesting characters besides her sister - a woman who runs a bridal store (Laila Robins), a stripper (Frances Fisher) and an adolescent tomboy named Ed (Dale Shuger), who is into self-mutilation - that they could have kept it real.

This movie can be described with one word: awful. Disregard what you read on the box--here's the only summary you need to know. This film explores certain aspects of feminist theory with all the intellectual sophistication of L. Ron Hubbard and all the grace of an elephant on roller skates. It's like a student film by a college freshman who is overly enamored of what he or she has learned in an introductory women's studies class.

"Female Perversions" is short on story and long on character as it peers into the life of an ambitious attorney (Swinton) who is far more confident in a courtroom than in her own insecure and sexually needy personal life. Apparently a sort of testament to the female condition, this flick by women about women surrounds Swinton with a conglomeration of neurotic females as it plods doggedly through a maze of peculiar behavior. On the upside, this deep character study offers some excellent performances as it explores its dark and aberrant landscape. On the downside, the film is a little over-the-top and glommed up with symbolism, dream sequences, and excursions into the surreal. Lacking in story, unpleasant in subject, and artsy-fartsy in execution, the common filmgoer may find this flick unsatisfying. However, for those into deep character studies and psychodramas, an interesting watch awaits. (B)

A surprisingly compelling artsy-indie type movie. I usually dislike obtrusive direction, including weird fantasy sequences, but these worked quite well here. This appears to be a consciously feminist project, as the directing, writing, and producing credits are almost all female, as well as all of the important characters. The cast was full of incredible actresses. The point of view character is played masterfully by Tilda Swinton, who was intense but yet confused and damaged. Amy Madigan nailed her also damaged character. Other supporting actresses who are excellent in their parts, and beautiful to boot, include Laila Robins, Frances Fisher, Paulina Porizkova, and especially Karen Sillas. Definitely worth seeing.

By now we are used to it, when sexuality is involved, the judgments are conflicting, perhaps tending towards denigration. We should reflect on this, without disturbing psychoanalysis, but it is a fact. Everything is accentuated if the topic concerns the female sexual sphere. It will also happen in 2008 with Valérie - Diary of a nymphomaniac always directed by women. Perhaps a doubt arises on the fact that perhaps women are more "capable" of tackling the subject than male directors, whose production with a porn vision borders on the ridiculous! Duty premise to talk about the film in question which is inspired by an essay by the late psychoanalyst Louise J. Kapplan Female Perversions: The Temptations of Emma Bovary. Kapplan, it should be remembered, was the leader in the 1960s, in the demand of the nascent feminist movement, for a sexuality free from the oppressive bonds of a fundamentally phallocratic society. Streitfeld made her the thesis, expressed in the essay, that female sexuality, although free to express itself, is not immune to the impulses it has to deal with. That she then succeeded in transferring this reflection into the film is a cause for debate, but we cannot deny the courage to have proposed a thorny and easy subject to criticism, and she deserves the credit for having chosen an actress like Swinton. perfect in the role. All this leads to a positive evaluation of the film, although not free from some stylistic and writing imperfections!

What a piece of pretentious trash! It's so bad that even on TV, it's boring. How did people like Tilda Swinton, Karen Sillas and Amy Madigan become involved in this piece of unredeemable garbage is beyond me. La Swinton likes performing in bad, pretentious movies, she is really quite insufferable. The other two, beats me. It's humorless and pointless and about some mysterious kind of female suffering that is quite unbearable to watch and a figment of a seriously misguided feminist's imagination. Just watching it gave me PMS. Listed as executive producer is Zalman King, king of soft porn laughable films. Yuck.

The title of this film is dangerously misleading because the film might be thought to be pornographic, and many people who might otherwise find it interesting will not see it. (The contrary is also the case, that all the wrong people will want to watch it because they are titillated by the title. They will also react with violent antipathy, in the wake of their disappointment. The choice of title seems to have been a deliberate act of provocation.) The German title, translated, is 'Fantasies of a Woman', which is rather milder. The film is a feminist essay, and the title is intended to be ironical, the 'female perversions' referred to being those imposed upon women by a conventional male-dominated society, so that for instance being a housewife is regarded as one type of 'female perversion'. It seems somehow natural that the wildly experimental Tilda Swinton would have to be in this film: indeed, how could she say no? How could such a film be made without her? She seems to be everywhere that people and films are pushing the envelope. As usual, she is breathtakingly brilliant. A surprising addition to the cast is Frances Fisher, who made such an impact as Angie, the red-headed waitress in the diner, in the intriguing television series 'Strange Luck' in 1995-6, at about this same time. Here she does some rather unnerving 'exotic dance' routines, which all goes to show something, I'm still trying to decide what, but whatever the reason for this is, she does it very well and one would think she had been a stripper or a showgirl all her life if one did not know she had instead been an actress. Tilda Swinton is electric here as a career gal who is so tense she might snap like a wire stretched too taut. She is about to be made a judge, God help us! (Many judges are crazy or weird anyway, but she would be more so than most, as the film makes all too clear.) Tilda Swinton portrays an extreme neurotic, and 'looking good' is essential to her, so she is always doing and re-doing her lipstick (an insecure woman's last refuge). She is a control freak and insanely superstitious. For instance, if she cannot wear her white suit for an interview with the Governor of California (not Arnie, a fictional one) for a judgeship, because it is 'lucky', she falls apart. Her kleptomaniac sister sees to it that she cannot wear the suit to the interview. Things are pretty tense like this throughout, and there are many fantasy elements to this film written, produced, and directed by women with women for women. I don't believe this film can really be excused by a 'women searching for their identities' justification, and if one approaches it earnestly from that angle (which may have been the earnest intention of the makers, for all I know), it is a failure which verges on parody sometimes, and has pretentious aspects. The merits of the film are different, and concern the intensity of portrayal and the mysterious depths of character revealed, especially of hidden or suppressed motivations. The lesbian aspects of the film are not central, but merely a part of the evolving self-realization of Tilda Swinton's character. I am firmly convinced that men can never understand women and women can never understand men. I first came to realize this in my teens when the novelist Pearl Buck said to me that 'men and women are completely different species and can never hope to understand one another'. That shocked me a lot, I never forgot it, and it has been repeatedly verified. I have now come to the conclusion that Nature has designed things this way. The imperative of Nature is the propagation of the species. If men and women understood each other, that would get in the way of propagation, and many fewer babies would be born. Consequently, evolutionary pressures have seen to it that this can never happen, in order to safeguard the future of the species. That is why men like myself who do not regard women as inferior beings (as many of my gender definitely do) are so intrigued by 'the mystery of women' and interested to see attempts to make films like this one where women contemplate women and try to understand themselves. It is true that there are no admirable characters on offer here, and that they are all pretty horrible people. Nevertheless, this film manages to be fascinating, although it is understandable that it would cause a lot of contradictory reactions, some of them violently opposed to it, and some admiring and appreciative. If we want films to punch us in the ribs instead of putting us to sleep, this one certainly qualifies. This is what is called 'independent film making', and long may it continue.

I saw this movie on a rented DVD in 2008. It is really bad, first of all they should sue the microphone guy for letting the micro appear so much into the picture of the movie (I never saw that happening before in any of the movies I have seen.....), and the director for such a lack of diligence and professionalism. If that kind of thing is let to happen, what can be said of the efforts input in other parts of the movie???

Streitfeld seems to try to improvise herself as Lynch in some scenes (in the house with the 3 women and the girl) but it is not a success at all...

Yes, if you see that movie you will see Swinton naked. But I am not sure that it is really an attraction... the former model playing the new attorney in the movie would have been a much safer bet.

This film has ended up on of all places Freevee where its easy accessible despite the title and it having an 18 rating. Apparently this is based on a book which I am not familiar with but it has something to do psychoanalysis.

The story concerns Tilda Swinton's character as some career lady lawyer (its always a lawyer isn't it?), who seems to be doing well in her career but nowhere else in her life. This Ally McBeale trope seems to be beloved of feminist for some reason, as if the idea is to prove that it is in fact intelligent women, based on their career/qualifications, who do not have a husband and kids. Because lawyers aren't stupid and stupid people do not end up childless and alone do they? Its all very 1990s feminism. Tilda's character is however not without sex. She has sex with a guy (highly successful apparently but arent they always in these films) and also a female, again because that is what feminism suggests ladies do. Of course she is a doctor no less. Apparently Tilda only has casual sex with highly qualified people. The irony which isn't pointed out is that the guy was likely using her for sex and likely had others on the go. While the psychiatrist in reality obviously had her own mental health issues. So neither of Tilda's partners suggested healthy relationships. The narrative is upset by a number of flashbacks to Tilda's past troubled family life. Which is fine, but there are also some very odd images which flash on the screen which make no sense, unless you are a psychotherapist or have read the book. This does not make for a good movie watching experience, because your attention drifts in and out simply because if the boredom and nonsense visual intrusions. Symbolism is useless if its not explained what the symbols are, otherwise its just images.

My cousin once remarked that he watched a film but it was from the woman's perspective, so it made no sense. And that is what this movie feels like.

The ending is also poorly shot as it apparently suggests an attempt at a suicide. Again the only reason this was made clear was by reading the plot on wiki. That is a major failure of the director. This is definitely a female film and its obvious it was female directed, you can usually tell by the score which always seems to involve a woman wailing over dramatic sounding music for some unknown reason. There are obviously a few sex scenes which come across as a bit Red Shoe Diaries and there is also some psychobabble about cleptomania "really being about sex". Which isn't saying much because psychoanalysis thinks everything is about sex. They also blame all of your problems on your parents. Not exactly a recipe for taking responsibility. The problem with feminist movies like this is they forget to make them interesting movies and they really just reinforce how damaging to women that political viewpoint has been.

The reality is that a career is not the most important thing in your life, your father probably wasn't an evil abusive man and that having a family is actually a positive thing when it comes to job interviews. Its more likely than not she would not have got the Judges position once the family discussion came up at the interview.

This is definitely a time capsule piece of 90s feminism and why so many women now well into middle age and beyond have felt robbed of their happiness. Its the 2020's and people know better.

This film deserves a "zero." Don't waste your rental dollar.

Utter waste of time.

Unfortunately, I need to write 10 lines minimum to comment.

I wonder if mere periods count. Period. Period. Period.

An alert middle-schooler could have done a better job with every aspect of this disaster.

You have been warned! Seriously. Really.

(IMDB screens should be made available in every rental store. The informed renter is a happy renter.)

Oh come on. Still not enough lines. Sigh.

Okay, read each of the reasonably coherent criticisms of this film as posted by other users and multiply the awful quotient by 5. There, that should do it.

I am somewhat surprised by the scathing reviews posted for what I found a provocative and entertaining work. I do guess that is what makes horse races. I rated the work a 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for something unconventional that requires you to think. I can see not agreeing with the filmmaker's perspective, but that it HAS a perspective is more than most films, and sets this little work apart. The performances were well crafted. Tilda Swinton does what she does best - gets under your skin and makes you squirm a bit. She is thoroughly uncomfortable to watch, by design I believe, and very effective. I think this is a fine little film.

It seems to me that quite a lot of people really dislike this film, when in reality, it's not very warranted. Oh sure, it's very weird, sexual, very "artsy" in the way you know will annoy a quite large number of people. I found it fascinating, though. I found it unpredictable and fun (until the pretty heavy final 15 minutes) and most importantly, I was able to see the glorious, best- actress-alive Tilda Swinton in a very different sort of role, a sort of role that I had never seen her do before but which she nails. She's very seductive and cold here, very unlikable and Swinton manages to make it all work gloriously, along with an impressive Amy Madigan as the most important secondary character.

This film is like no other: I find it indescribably brilliant and subtle. If you watch it many times over, as I have, you will discover infinite layers. (Even the props have hidden messages in them!) This film is so on-target about the complexities of being a woman in our time. I feel it should be required watching for 20 year old women entering the real world, followed by a discussion with women who have lived in it for a while. It seems like it might be a difficult film for a man to understand. Perhaps some of the responses here are from people who never should have picked up this movie in the first place, a case of bad labeling or description on the jacket. I was recently reminded of the existence of this film, although it is in my collection. I will presently look for anything that this screenwriter/director has made since, as she is nothing short of brilliant.