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| Universal Pictures | Release Date: October 5, 1990 |
Starring:
Bruce Myers, Féodor Atkine, Fred Ward, Jean-Philippe Écoffey, Juan Luis Buñuel, Kevin Spacey, Maria de Medeiros, Richard E. Grant, Sylvie Huguel, Uma Thurman
Summary:
Anaïs Nin meets the American writer, Henry Miller, in Paris in 1931. She keeps a diary of her sexual awakening which includes Henry and his wife, June.
With Henry & June, [Kaufman] has had the courage to look at the many unconventional faces of love with grace and sympathy. It is a daring and major accomplishment by one of our foremost film artists. [05 Oct 1990, p.E1]
A beautiful movie, probably more erotic than any mainstream film ever made and yet never remotely pornographic, at other times hilariously funny. [05 Oct 1990, p.3F]
Henry & June, a portrait of two pioneers in prose, accomplishes its own kind of pioneering on screen and not merely because it's unapologetically erotic: it effortlessly pairs that oddest of all couples, sexual desire and cerebral activity. It is, as a friend commented in a phrase Nin and Miller would have loved, "an erection for the mind." [05 Oct 1990]
While visually lush and inviting, this insular, self-absorbed film is more a violation than a celebration of the lives of two of literatures foremost sensualists, Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin. Little of Miller’s boisterous, anarchic spirit makes its way into this film. Nor is its superficial handling of Nin’s theme of a woman’s self-realization likely to satisfy her admirers.
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In its depiction of Depression Paris and sexual candor, Henry & June succeeds. The central performances of Fred Ward, as the cynical, life-loving Miller, and Maria de Medeiros, as the beautiful, insatiable Anais, splendidly fulfill the director’s vision. Pic is less successful in gaining audience sympathy for these hedonists. Also, the character of June (Uma Thurman) is ill-defined.
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