Bob A-2

The mainstream middle-class person decides to investigate some aspect of demi-monde living, in this case prostitution, and finds herself being caught up in its irresistible fascination and reconsidering how she views her own identity. Did the filmmakers really think that there was something here that an audience hadn't seen before? With minor variations it's been done with murder, mental illness, gambling and drug addiction -- a half-dozen such films come to mind easily -- not to mention alternate lifestyles that may not be wrong in themselves but are nonetheless labeled "fringe-dwelling," so what exactly is new here?

Juliette's character says she doesn't drink, but suddenly relents and shortly afterward is drinking everyone else under the table. Someone at the production end apparently just assumed that he/she understood the teatotaler's mindset and had the character flip abruptly on a moral resolve of this magnitude. If, rather, the character is a recovering problem drinker or even alcoholic, should not this little character detail have taken priority in what's really wrong with her life?

Fantasy sequence where main character imagines herself surrounded by all the male customers described by the prostitutes she interviewed is blatant and way too concrete.

One could call the film character-driven perhaps: that these actors in these roles seem to have plausibility in being family and/or forming friendships. If the film were genuinely about something the audience needed to see then these would be the actors we'd like to hire.

It was reasonable, among other possibilities, for the "50 Worst Movies" book to conclude that this was a bad film. In fact I think Chicago's Music Box, in its current release (May '08) committed a sin of omission by not mentioning all the negative reviews cited in the Medved book. Actors' standing perfectly still while others step out to speak is a non-cinematic affectation, not really adding to motion picture art or craft, and pretty much exhausted by Eugene O'Neill in the Twenties. Aristocratic setting makes the work effete and personal. Fact that it reflects Hiroshima Mon Amour or other works in Resnais "oeuvre" not relevant to whether this film is good. I'm still open to discussion about the good qualities attributed to this movie, but also afraid it will take a lot of convincing.

By the way, the "50 Worst" book is not exactly by the Medved brothers: it was co-authored by Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfus. It does list Michael Medved as a contributor somewhere in its Acknowledgments.