Henry & June has a place in film history as the first picture to be rated NC-17. There are films with much more sex a nudity and offensive material than this that get R in the US.
The film tells the love triangle of Henry Miller (Fred Ward), his wife June (the stunning Uma Thurman) and Anais Nin (the equally stunning Maria de Medeiros). There is lots of sex and trips to brothels, a casual lesbian romance and Henry bedhopping between the two leading ladies. It is this relaxed sexual freedom that is more the moral center of this movie rather than the sex itself.
There are some very erotic scenes, most notably the notorious and famous lesbian encounter between Anais and June towards the end. It is brilliantly filmed and contains a very early, wonderful role from Kevin Spacey playing a talkative paranoid loser.
All these good qualities are not binding enough to make a coherent drama of this length. It drags on and has some completely deletable scenes. It provides no real insight into the author as a character, but merely uses the writers a backdrop to tell the love-triangle story. Henry & June seems to stop itself short of being purely a sexual film or a drama. But still, it is a very good love triangle story.
*** out of ****.
If you like Maria de Medeiros here and in Pulp Fiction, then seek out the small Spanish, Film Goldenballs.
The film tells the love triangle of Henry Miller (Fred Ward), his wife June (the stunning Uma Thurman) and Anais Nin (the equally stunning Maria de Medeiros). There is lots of sex and trips to brothels, a casual lesbian romance and Henry bedhopping between the two leading ladies. It is this relaxed sexual freedom that is more the moral center of this movie rather than the sex itself.
There are some very erotic scenes, most notably the notorious and famous lesbian encounter between Anais and June towards the end. It is brilliantly filmed and contains a very early, wonderful role from Kevin Spacey playing a talkative paranoid loser.
All these good qualities are not binding enough to make a coherent drama of this length. It drags on and has some completely deletable scenes. It provides no real insight into the author as a character, but merely uses the writers a backdrop to tell the love-triangle story. Henry & June seems to stop itself short of being purely a sexual film or a drama. But still, it is a very good love triangle story.
*** out of ****.
If you like Maria de Medeiros here and in Pulp Fiction, then seek out the small Spanish, Film Goldenballs.