The Comfort of Strangers

This film established for me conclusively that Paul Schrader was an aesthetician rather than a thoughtful artist, after other stylish trips into the lives of drug-dealers, gigolos, etc. Not in the same way that Michael Mann is, but, well... For a period in the early nineties I noted that the movies which provided insufficient answers and portrayed unlikeable characters would first p*ss me off, and then draw me back in after a month or so to reinspect it for evidence I'd missed; Plenty, Comfort of Strangers, others. While ambiguity can be stimulating, this seems to be just a tease. Either the characters in this world are operating according to some undisclosed rule, or some obscure theme links it all. I have what I believe is an accurate thesis about why this numb, vacationing English couple endures the awful Walken and Mirren more than once, but it's facile and barely worth pursuing as a discussion or as a movie. Beyond the triumvirate (Schrader, MacEwan, Pinter) working overtime to be inscrutable, Rupert Everett fails to bring his A game to this, or engage with anyone; Richardson, the schoolgirls, his inexplicably peevish orders not to scratch. There's also some strange gay intertextuality in Everett's casting, as a straight man who unwittingly becomes the target of another (ostensibly) straight mans attention. Not since Quentin Crisp played Queen Elizabeth will you have been this confused. No, it wasn't well-known at the time that Everett was gay, but Schrader would have known. Perhaps it's a short list of young straight British actors who look terrific unclothed as the script requires here. The deliberately unengaged quality of the couple is not served well by Everett's lack of engagement due to being gay playing straight. This layering conflates the themes and causes really mixed results; readings are muddied almost immediately. But I'm very aware and appreciative of the beautifully designed camera work; the linking shots, establishing shots, and of course long developed sequences are among the most beautiful pieces of celluloid I've ever seen. Ditto for Badalamenti's ravishing, ominous score. There are some beautiful, filmic moments in it. Robert loses the cameras attention in the middle of his tiresome story and we go for a trip around a swank bar. At first there are only men (oh, it's gay bar...) then a man applies chap stick, then a mannish woman flirts with a guy (hmmmm... it's not a gay bar), then an isolated red, curly-haired woman is dwelled on. I have no idea what it means and what Schrader was out to achieve but the sequence stays with me in a way the more narrative pieces of the film just sit there. Perhaps in another better movie it would add up to more. Here these moments just seem to fight the narrative. After twelve years of scouring this movie for meaning, I give up. It's just not satisfying as a story, a parable, etc.. This is a frustrating, zero-steps-forward-two-steps-back endeavor. Together novelist McEwan, screenwriter Pinter and director Schrader crafted an emotional fog of a movie that deliberately posits problematics, but hints at few answers. Colin and Mary's six or seven scenes of idle chatter are badly directed and positively grating, something to be endured rather than enjoyed; consuming the dramatic arc alive. You could mix the scenes up and play them in any order you like and you still couldn't develop a viewers interest. For deliberate ambiguity played well, just rent Last Year at Marienbad.

This is probably Walken's best performance ever. His character takes center stage. A complex personality leavened by the yeast of sadism. Sexual dominance is his preferred game .. how will the unsuspecting English couple fare? The setting is Venice, the music is moorish. The mix is powerful.

What a load of pretentious nonsense! An odd couple on holiday in Venice meet an even odder couple and they all share their individual and collective dysfunctionality blah, blah, blah..... The writing is ludicrous and the story mostly ridiculous. If you ever want to go on a trip to Venice, don't see this film as it is portrayed as a slum and mainly under water, and nothing to do at night but walk around narrow, spooky streets, get lost and if you are lucky enough to find a restaurant, the chef will be off sick anyway. Now Rupert Everett the male lead in this film has let us know ad nauseum about his "preferences" so what a strange casting as he is meant to be 'straight' but it is clear he has no interest whatsover in his female co-lead and it sure shows. And others in this picture gush over Rupert as being a "beautiful" man. Personally I find him ugly in the extreme, hideous features, gorky frame,etc. Still some reasonable photography plus OK music so that lifts it by a mark, hence: 2/10.

I had never heard of this film before I stumbled across it one evening. I am a big fan of Christopher Walken and noticed that Helen Mirren was in it too. Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson also star - so I assumed (wrongly) this would be worth watching. It's not. Set in Venice, we see a strained relationship between Everett and Richardson as a holidaying couple. They meet Walken one evening as they were looking for a bar, they have some drinks, Walken invites them to stay at his house and there they meet Mirren. I could elaborate more and even give the ending away (an ending that could not come soon enough) but even that would be a waste of time. I cannot even explain the plot because it makes no sense. A bit like the dialogue too. Everett spends the whole time either walking (semi-bounding if you ask me - where did he learn to walk like that?) around with one hand in his pocket looking totally bored with everything or talking cack-handed, pompous rubbish. Richardson looks like she'd rather suck on a bag of lemons than be in this film and as for Mirren and Walken - why they ever signed up at all is beyond me. The dialogue is so bad - it has to be heard to be believed. One such example is Everett asks why Walken was secretly taking pictures of him before they met. Walken answers: "See that Barber Shop. My grandfather went to that Barber shop. My father went to that barber shop. I go to that barber shop." Then he turns to look at an island in the distance and says "See over there? That's Cemetery Island." Does a short snort and walks off screen - scene over. What???? This is a waste of time, energy, acting talent, anything else you want to throw in. Not worth watching even if you were given a free giant Pizza and a pint of Peroni to add to the Italian ambiance. I would have given this film 0/10 if there was an option. Unfortunately, there wasn't. 1/10. Avoid like the plague.

This is one of those movies like "Mommie Dearest" that, after the first viewing, you're not sure that you could have possibly seen what you think you saw. It's so over the top that you need to shower afterward. And then, for some twisted reason, you watch it again and you start to like it. Everything about it is preposterous (though, Venice looks cool). Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett play, perhaps, the dullest couple to ever grace the screen. It is impossible to care about, or even understand, the emotional quandary they're going through. Helen Mirren is completely insane, but nothing can prepare you for the vintage, bravura Walken performance. His monologue about his father (that he delivers more than once in a dubious Italian accent) is a zenith in the Hammy Hall of Fame. Seek out someone else that has seen it and recite that monologue to each other in a bad Italian dialect and you will seldom in your life laugh harder. Rent (or buy, as I have) quickly and brace yourself.

just what in the hell were Christopher Walken & Helen Mirren doing in this junk these two legends just wasted themselves in this junk it was pure embarrassing to see them here. the direction of this film is nice but where is the script and story its got nothing. a dumb unmarried couple goes to Venice to travel but their they meet a married couple who traps people. all the sex scenes this film promises is false there is little bit nudity but no sex this is not a soft core or erotic film at all the poster is misleading. i like classic films and old films in general but this was trash not all old films are good i was shocked when i searched and found out that this was based on a novel. the whole film runs on lame dialogs and in the end our main hero gets killed badly end of story. the moral of the story is don't trust anyone specially random people if you are touring another country. the only good thing was cinematography some nice locations you can see that's it,the film tries way too hard to connect with audience but fails. the title of this film is comfort i must say i felt discomfort after viewing this serious crap of nonsense. i hate this film why so many distributors picked this film up is beyond me its worse then a cheap made for TV film,all the positive reviews are fake this film is boring i am warning everyone here on IMDb if you pick this disc up for rent please return it is a waste of time and money. The Comfort Of Strangers 1990 is a terrible film avoid it at all costs my rating is 1/10:Avoid It

So much is written in Hollywood about a character's ‘redemptive arc'-it is rare that anything redemptive crosses our path in a Paul Schrader movie, and we wouldn't want it any other way. Let's talk about real life, life ala Schrader and Pinter---rarely redemptive, where a dismantled woman (Natasha Richardson) in her late twenties, divorced, burdened with child and confusion, looking ahead to 40 years of loneliness, seeks solace in one of the few options left available to her: the younger, good-looking, yet far too effeminate suitor (Rupert Everett). Their pairing, unsettling at most every juncture, can only be upstaged by a spectacular Chris Walken performance as Robert, a predator of confusing lineage who smells blood in the water faster than OJ can smell the first tee. It is the character Robert on whom the SNL parody `The Continental' is likely based, and Walken plays him so flawlessly that we may sometimes believe he has something but the basest on his mind, which of course, he has not. Helen Mirren is perfect as Robert's co-dependent compadre. Ignorance is never bliss in this day and age, and our story of a young couple indeed destined to suffer the consequences of their needless existence twists and turns tautly in their ill-timed venture to Venice. Looking for fun? Next time, kids, try Disneyland.

with a brief interlude of unaccountable horror. And that's all. A pastiche of false subtleties. Forget about it. Fleshing out this review is much like what fleshing out the screenplay must have been -- it implies an underlying motivating principle in its characters, but there is no such principle in the ideas. Bo one can tell, from the beginning or the end, that there was any coherent idea in this film. I'm surprised, as well, that the pretense of the film went unnoticed. Since I must go on with my comment, and as I had to endure the slowly passing puzzlement of the film, I say simply that it didn't justify itself, which is, after all, what a good film aims for. This one is not a contender.

I bought this in a set marked as 'Triple Feature Romance'. I can't imagine the morbid mind that would consider this movie a romance! I don't think I would have liked it even if I hadn't been expecting an undemanding love story, but then I probably wouldn't have watched it if it had been in a set with an accurate label. Certainly there is sex, even love, mostly of a very odd, sick type, but the obsession that leads a couple to murder the unwitting object of their sexual fantasies goes beyond the mere quirkiness of BDSM and stalking into a truly surreal madness. Yes, the scenery is nice, but I'm not sure Colin is quite so beautiful as to cause such fascination at first sight from a distance, though the obsessive couple are frighteningly believable. *shudder* But I'm not sure I can believe the two would be so stupid as to return to the apartment of a man they already have good reason to feel uneasy about! Going there in the first place was odd enough after their experience with him the night before. Yuck!

Still trying to figure out the point of this movie. The cast, setting and music were all the best that can be had, but the dialogue was as stilted as Mamet on a bad day, there was zero chemistry between Everett and Richardson, and Walken and Mirren were stuck in silly, unfathomable roles. I don't mind talky movies with slow dénouement but this didn't even have the merit of shedding light on human nature's dark spots. It amounted to a lurid headline with no information in the report. Why do Walken's and Mirren's characters act the way they do? I didn't even care enough about Everett's and Richardson's characters' relationship to wonder why it went from lukewarm to supercharged overnight and then back to lukewarm. Their relationship reminded me of Sheltering Sky - puzzling and sad, but not worthy of much interest. So I'm back to my initial question: what was the point?