I Want You

One of the best movies I have seen this year. Michael Winterbottom proves to be a truly versatile director with this film about love, loneliness, sorrow and obsession in an English coastal town. The use of Elvis Costello's song "I want you" as a theme throughout the film is superb. It leaves you with a strange and yearning sensation that will last for days. The cinematography is so very good, thanks to Kieslowskis photographer Zlavomir Idziak who also filmed "Gattaca" creating a similar visual style. Wonderful yellow, green and blue renders a supernatural, poetic feel to the characters as well as the town. You watch with the feeling that anything can happen, and it does.

The casting of this movie is almost perfect. Rachel Weisz is equally true as the both innocent and dangerous Helen as she was in "The Mummy" playing a librarian with vigour, looks and brains. I predict hers to be a great career. Make way, Kate Winslet and Helena Bonham-Carter! Alessandro Nivola as Martin is just as persuasive. He is scary, touching, pathetic and assertive all at the same time, consumed by an obsession with Helen fuelled by eight years in jail.

The only thing that bothers me about this movie is the way it abandons the mute boy and his sister's story to concentrate on Helen and Martin. However, this is a minor detail in a movie that often bears visual reminders of Derek Jarman at his very best. The very self-conscious references to "Romeo is bleeding" and "Red rock west" will probably ensure a similar cult-following before long.

This was an interesting film with some very quirky characters.

Honda (Luka Petrusic) is a tall, thin 14-year-old boy who usually went everywhere at kind of a gallop, and is a mute. He lives in a house on the beach with his sister named Smokey(Labina Mitevska)--he also has a little hideaway in an old boat that has washed up on the beach.

Honda has a rather strange hobby of listening constantly to other people's conversations and other activities, and recording them.

Honda can even record people in a car not too distant from where he is, and he even has mobile equipment.

One day Honda runs into a beautiful young woman named Helen(Rachel Weisz), quite literally. After making her acquaintance, Honda and her become friends.

A young man named Martin,(Alessandro Nivola)out of prison and on parole, with whom Helen was previously involved, is stalking her.

Smokey, a sultry nightclub singer, who has a very unusual hairstyle, upon meeting Martin, becomes very interested in him.

All four of these people have some psychological issues. Helen - has some obvious sexual problems Martin- is a stalker Smokey- is going to bed with every man she encounters. And Honda with his muteness,eavesdropping and obsession with Helen is also in need of Dr. Freud.

We discover as the film progresses, why Honda is mute and what transpired between Martin and Helen in the past.

How this all concludes was quite surprising and unexpected to me.

8 stars

'I Want You' is unique, transcending British cinema in one easy leap. What the film offers that makes it special is a portrait of obsessive desire and compulsion framed quite brazenly in an English coastal town. Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak (of Three Colours Red/White and Blue fame) commits to celluloid a most distinct and unfamiliar slice of life in a claustrophobic town, complimented superbly with Winterbottom's direction.

The cast although largely unknown (with the exception of Weisz and Nirvola) effortlessly demand attention and understanding and the development of these characters is really what the film is all about.

'I Want You' consciously refers back to cult films like 'Red Rock West' and 'Romeo is Bleeding' and here it seems Micheal Winterbottom may just have produced an English answer.

In a small coast town in England, the hairdresser Helen (Rachel Weisz) is the passion of the ex-convicted now on probation Martin (Alessandro Nivola). They were lovers in the past before Martin be sent to prison. Although having a restrain order against Martin, he decides to visit Helen and regain her lover. Meanwhile, the dumb teenager Honda (Luka Petrusic), who lives with his nymphomaniac sister, the singer Smokey (Labina Mitevska), develops a platonic love for Helen, spoiling her relationship with her boyfriend. Dark secrets are revealed in the end of this weird story.

This suffocating erotic story of love, obsession and crime is not recommended for any audience. It has many positive points, such as the performance of the whole cast, highlighting Luka Petrusic in the role of a mute boy, the beauty of Rachel Weisz, the heavy atmosphere created by Michael Winterbottom and the end of the story with no concessions. The characters are slowly disclosed and in the end they are well developed. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): 'Desejo Você' ('Want You')

The topics touched on in this film include suicide, patricide, pedophilia, sexual obsession and murder. With a running time of just 87 min. and a large dose of nudity, it is amazing just how boring this film is. We are to believe that it is a cross between a 1950s English kitchen sink drama and an erotic thriller. Even though there are large gaps revealed to us in the characters' motivation, there is enough shown as the make them as one dimensional as a paper cut-out. Rachel Weisz's two nude scenes might be considered courageous in another film; but with so much gratuitous nudity preceding it, it loses it's impact. If you want to see Rachel Weisz naked and have a fast forward button, then rent this film. Otherwise stay away. It is incredibly pretentious and boring.