Bitter Moon

As easy as it would be to make rude connections between the film’s raunchy shenanigans and Polanski’s own history, the fact is that Bitter Moon doesn’t feel like either an explanation, an apology, nor a defense of the kinky sexual games adults play. Think of it as Polanski’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Read full review

Polanski has created his funniest and possibly his cruelest movie: a thoroughly warped tale of sexual obsession that leaves its quartet of lust-driven characters with nowhere left to hide. [18 Mar 1994, p.D3]

Widely reviled a decade ago, Bitter Moon now plays as a visionary bridging of Brian De Palma's cinematic perversity and Takashi Miike's literal perversity, in addition to being another uncompromising Polanski study of the ways people torture each other. Read full review

Rich and darkly disturbing, it's also wickedly entertaining. Read full review

A disturbing, spare story and a return to Polanski's earlier thematic grounds; it's not Knife in the Water, but it does feature fragmenting marriages and a big boat. Read full review

With its American, English, and French characters representing the three cultures Polanski has known since he left Poland, it's also quite possibly his most personal film—and certainly his most self-critical. Read full review

Bitter Moon is wretched excess. But Polanski directs it without compromise or apology, and it's a funny thing how critics may condescend to it, but while they're watching it you could hear a pin drop. Read full review

Polanski has great wicked fun with sex, love, cruelty, books, movies and, of course, himself. If you don’t go along with the joke, you’re in for rough sailing. Read full review

Bitter Moon isn't perfection, but this truly creepy story of obsessive love and even more obsessive hatred is deliciously, horribly, compellingly watchable. [22 Mar 1994]

It's a gleamingly cracked tale of romance gone mad played out on a moonlit ocean voyage that turns into a bizarre, floating nightmare of slapstick perversion. [08 Apr 1994, p.A]

Adapted by Polanski and his longtime collaborators Gerard Brach and John Brownjohn from a novel by Pascal Bruckner, Bitter Moon works as a kinky sex farce, comedy of manners and playful spin on national stereotypes. [22 Apr 1994, p.AE15]

Recklessly perched on the edge of the ludicrous, this examination of a destructive erotic passion unfolds with an unsettling mixture of steam and mordant iron. Read full review

Bitter Moon is, by any reasonable standard, just awful. It's smutty, far-fetched and bizarrely acted, especially by Ms. Seigner, who gives the kind of performance that can only be explained by the fact that she is the director's wife. The good news: Mr. Polanski seems to know all this, and even to encourage it. This material obviously appeals to his sense of mischief, which remains alive and well. Read full review

Polanski's crisp and twisted direction unravels one kinky film. [18 Mar 1994]

It's an odd little movie, one directed with such a sure hand, you can't help but go along on its bumpy, mesmerizing ride. [29 Apr 1994, p.G4]

If you're in the mood for some enjoyable depravity, Bitter Moon is quite a trip. [15 Apr 1994, p.05]

After 36 years of making movies, Polanski may be off his creative rocker, but he's still having fun. Read full review

This is bad melodrama, complete with hammy acting and purple prose, and far too long to be even passingly entertaining. It's soap opera quality, from beginning to sensationalistic end. Read full review

With its musty scenario of a dissolute middle-aged man and a clingy, devouring child-woman, 60-year-old co-writer/director/producer Polanski's film smacks of wish-fulfillment and self-justification. Read full review

BITTER MOON is entertaining, but in the manner of ghastly car crashes and legendary theatrical disasters; you can't take your eyes off it, but you often want to. Read full review

This much can be said for Roman Polanski's carnal hoot-fest Bitter Moon -- it keeps you wondering from scene to scene if the director has gone bonkers. No doubt a lot of the lunacy is intentional, but it's still lunacy. And not terribly enjoyable lunacy either. The film plays like a dirty joke that somehow got lost in the translation.[18 Mar 1994, p.F1]

There's no creepiness here - only creeping ennui, as the movie slips away. [24 Mar 1994, p.4D]

Bitter Moon would be a camp classic if it weren't so dispiriting watching Roman Polanski cannibalize and then finally parody himself into narrative and artistic collapse. The film's big problem is that it's so totally devoid of the sexual energy it needs to traverse the gantlet of perversity through which Polanski sends it. [15 Apr 1994, p.94]

Polanski attempts a precarious mixture of drama and comedy here -- seesawing between a serious look at sexual obsession on the one hand and an antic, spoofy tone on the other. It's a bold risk, but it rarely works because we usually don't know if Polanski is being intentionally funny, or merely inept. [25 Mar 1994, p.C3]

Sadly, the movie indicates that Polanski’s erotic narcissism may have consumed not just his life but, by all appearances, his art as well. Read full review

Four years after Frantic, Roman Polanski approaches rock bottom with Bitter Moon, a phony slice of huis clos drama between two couples aboard a Euro ocean liner. Strong playing by topliner Peter Coyote can't compensate for a script that's all over the map and a tone that veers from outre comedy to erotic game-playing. Read full review

Deliberately provocative, infuriatingly melodramatic, this is a film that begs not to be taken seriously, and requires a ready suspension of moral discernment for maximum enjoyment. Read full review

Roman Polanski's English-language film released internationally two years ago also lays claim to being a kinky sex comedy, but the sex is predictably darker, and the laughs few and far between. [18 Mar 1994]