Bitter Moon

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