Film Review: Nymph()maniac (18) (Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium/U.K. 2014) (Director: Lars Von Trier), The Cameo Cinema Screen Two, Edinburgh, Vol. I Friday 28.02.2014 21:10 Vol. II Saturday 01.03.2014, 20:45

This film revolves around a character called Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who at the beginning of the film is lying bloodied and bruised in an alleyway where she is found by the kindly Selligman (Stellan Skarsgard). Selligman takes Joe home to allow her to rest and recuperate, and Joe begins to regale him with her life story. Joe's story is a graphic recounting of her nymphomania (refusing to term herself as sex addict) and it soon becomes apparent that Selligman is a virgin who can only equate what she is talking about with the likes of fly-fishing and the laws of geometry and numeracy.       

The film work of Lars Von Trier I think to be very hit-and-miss. There are only two of his previous films that I rate: 'The Idiots' (1998) & 'Antichrist' (2009). Sadly this does not add to the pluses. I found Vol. I boring and extremely tedious, and Vol. II little better. I found the character of Joe's recounting of her sexual life to thankfully not be titillating, though regrettably I also found this to be indulgent, insensitive to who she was speaking with and really dull. None of the recounting I found to be presented in an interesting way. It never tries to give any sense as to why Joe felt compelled to behave in the way she did. There are also scenes that are recounted and shown such as Joe's father shitting the bed while in the process of dying, where I was left thinking that Lars was solely pushing buttons by this, as this certainly appeared to add nothing to understanding Joe. 

Vol. II felt to be marginally better than Vol. I, though this was probably due to my by this point expecting tedium. At the end of Vol. II Joe is about to go to sleep having found a friend in Selligman, and Selligman going to his room to do similar, when the film suddenly enters lazy and angering stereotype. Sadly not even this felt interesting. It felt as though Lars had lost interest in stimulating by this this point and had fallen back upon the sort-of shear predictability that you would get from an ignorant 'hollywood' director. Lars, Shame on you. 

Even to consider how the title is advertised using the empty brackets in place of the 'o', as this is suggestive of the female genitalia, strikes me as quite juvenile and not the sort of thing I would expect of an artist. The poster is also childishly misleading, showing a myriad of actors with 'cum-faces' on, when the majority of these characters never engage in intimate acts within the film. 

I cannot recommend this to anyone. Don't waste your hard-earned pennies. 

In terms of rating, I did think should I at least give it one out of ten. Though then I had to consider, 'what for?'. If I were to give any points it would be a reflection upon previous work by Lars and that is not acceptable, so sadly Lars get's the first 00/00 of the year. Tut Tut. Not even Uma Thurman's single scene (the best thing in the film) could save this one from the ignominy of the double zero. 

Rating: 00/00.