Bitter Moon MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 Content: -4

Aboard a Mediterranean cruise ship, English couple Nigel (Hugh Grant) and Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) meet American Oscar (Peter Coyote), an unpublished writer. Confined to a wheel chair, Oscar has a French wife, Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner). Oscar notices Nigel's interest in Mimi, a sensual dancer. He invites Nigel to his cabin and proceeds to tell the story of meeting Mimi. The story is sexually graphic and at first repels Nigel. Nevertheless, he returns each day to hear more of the story. Nigel learns that Mimi, in revenge for his treatment of her, caused Oscar's paralysis but now takes care of him. At the end of Oscar's story, Nigel attempts to have an affair with Mimi, but it is Fiona who holds the surprises. This two- hour-plus depressing film of a couple's relationship and varied sexual activities only creates an urge to leave early.

Nigel and Fiona have marital problems they hope to resolve on the cruise which will take them to India to seek "wisdom" in India's religious teachings. Nigel's desire for Mimi is magnified by Oscar's graphic stories of their sexual activities. Through flashbacks, we learn that Oscar insisted that Mimi have an abortion and then abandoned her. When he winds up in a hospital after being hit by a bus, Mimi visits him in the hospital, pulls him out of bed, breaking his back. Mimi then plans to care for him, and treats him badly, even having sex with other men, knowing Oscar can only watch. As if all these lurid details aren't enough to demand your money back, Mimi and Fiona develop a lesbian relationship. They are in bed together when Oscar shoots Mimi and commits suicide in front of Nigel. Breast nudity, rear nudity (both genders), along with excessive profanity, obscene and crude language add to the offensiveness. This is a film to definitely avoid. It too should have an NC-17 rating.

Preview Reviewer: Paul R. Bicking
Distributor: Fine Line Cinema, 575 8th Avenue, 16th Flr, NY, NY 10018