Product Details

• Actors: Hugh Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner, Peter Coyote, Victor Banerjee
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• VHS Release Date: April 15, 1997
• Run Time: 139 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303914985
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,949 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Unquestionably one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Roman Polanski (Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, The Pianist) turns his talents to the realm of sexual perversity and its emotional toll. While on a Mediterranean cruise, Nigel and Fiona (Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas) find a young French woman named Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner) crying in a bathroom. Mimi's paraplegic American husband Oscar (Peter Coyote) forces Nigel to listen to how Oscar and Mimi fell in love--as well as how they discovered kinky erotic games and finally arrived at a curdled, mutual sadism. Bitter Moon veers erratically from salacious erotica to black comedy to clumsy psychodrama, but individual scenes have a definite punch. Coyote chews the scenery with glee, Seigner (Polanski's wife, adding a hint of lurid autobiography) flounders moodily, and Grant seems miscast, but Scott Thomas gives the movie some actual dignity. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker

Bitter Moon-Roman Polanski's rivetingly weird new movie tells the story of two married couples who meet on a cruise ship. Nigel (Hugh Grant) and Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas), a proper pair of Brits, are obviously a little bored with each other; voluptuous Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner) and her wheelchair-bound husband, Oscar (Peter Coyote), are locked in a destructive relationship in which their mutual passion can be expressed only as cruelty. Polanski can't quite muster the icy absurdist rigor that made his early pictures so distinctive, and the big erotic set pieces play like an "SCTV" parody of "Last Tango in Paris." The couples' sadistic gamesmanship isn't nearly as disturbing-or as funny-as it should be, because the staging keeps turning garish and theatrical, as if Polanski couldn't stop reminding us how naughty he is. His style betrays a kind of creative panic: it's Bu–uel with an elbow in your ribs. Also with Victor Banerjee. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Erotic Story, May 25, 2000

By 

David Montgomery "Book Critic" (davidjmontgomery.com) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bitter Moon [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Roman Polanski has never been accused of being a timid filmmaker. Over the years, his many movies have been distinguished by their potent subject matter and sure-handed direction. They are certainly not for everyone's taste, but those who like Polanski films tend to like them very much indeed. Bitter Moon is no different. It is one of the most frank and deliciously outrageous films I have seen in a long time.

The story begins with a very staid and proper British couple on an ocean voyage. Nigel and Fiona (Hugh Grant and Kristen Scott-Thomas) are hoping to rekindle the faint spark of romance that is left in their marriage. What they get instead is something much more than they bargained for.

Almost immediately, they meet Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner), a seductive French femme fatale, and her crippled husband Oscar (Peter Coyote), a failed American writer. Oscar knows that Nigel desires Mimi and he is willing to accommodate him, but first Nigel must listen to the sordid story of their life together.

I don't want to give away too many of the details, for the shock of hearing their tale is the best part of the film. It is, at various turns, erotic, outrageous, outlandish, hilarious, titillating and unbelievable. What it is certainly not is boring. As we peek in on their bizarre sex life, first stimulated, then horrified, we are never quite sure what is true and what is fantasy. Against his better judgment, Nigel finds himself drawn into their twisted, little world and the results do not disappoint.

It seems that it always takes a European director to make a film such as this one. Americans are far too timid about sexuality to deal with it in an frank and adult manner. You can count on Polanski or Paul Verhoeven or Bertrand Blier to make a film like "Bitter Moon." But what about Spielberg or Scorsese or Coppola? Never. When it comes to films involving violence, American directors can be as bold and explicit as one could ever desire. In stories involving eroticism and sensuality, however, they are sadly lacking.

Due to some regrettable incidents in Polanski's past, his films seldom get the respect they deserve in this country. That is unfortunate because his work is generally superb. His 1988 thriller "Frantic," starring Harrison Ford, remains one of the best, most unappreciated films of recent years. "Bitter Moon" was first released in Europe in 1992, but it took two years for it to finally be shown in America. Anyone who ignores this one, though, will be missing a damn fine film.

39 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Less than 3 stars?!! Madness...., April 20, 2004

By 

Christian Hunter "Christian Hunter" (Austin, Texas Santa Barbara, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bitter Moon (DVD)

I was compelled to write this review based on the handfull of negative reviews (like the one below).

I think this movie is an absolute gem. First off, taking a step back, this movie isn't about two good people that meet and fall in love. I believe this movie is about what happens when two very base, very bored, and largely devoid of virtue collide. It's about the danger in irrational immoral entanglement (again, this is just my opinion). You see, the sex scenes (some of them anyway) are meant to be laughable. These two hit bottom together and reach (what Peter Coyote, the male partner calls) "sexual bankruptcy"....right in front of your eyes, they get slaughtered by their own insane urges! Brilliant, strange, interesting, depressing, important (especially if you're prone to confuse urges with love).

Peter Coyote gives an amazing performance, Polanski offered up his own wife (Emmanuelle Seigner) as the temptress (c'mon, you've got to give him at least one star for having enough love for this film to direct his own wife through sex scenes).

If you haven't seen Bitter Moon, don't miss this film. I think it raises important questions and warnings about certain popular behavior (or at least tendencies) in relationships. All the while being entertaining, and at times utterly shocking.

Hope this was helpful.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A FUN ROMP THROUGH FEVERED IMAGINATION, February 26, 2004

By 

Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bitter Moon (DVD)

Bitter Moon is surely not for everyone. It's one of Polanski's audacious ones -- he seemed to be far beyond concern over matters of taste. And Emmanuelle Seigner -- easily the pivot of this bizarre tale -- never seemed miscast in a role as a voracious seductress with black widow tendencies, whose amusement is to blind men in the headlights of her sexuality, and step on the gas.

The word "promiscuous" was coined to describe films like this. Like all stories dealing with the extremes of sex, it arrives at moments when we can barely prevent ourselves from laughing (e.g., S&M combines humorless scenarios with absurd choreography.)

It is the easiest thing in the world to criticize movies like Bitter Moonshaking one's head wearily and complaining about the director's zany imagination. And of course a lot of it is wretched excess.

But Polanski directs it without compromise or apology, and it's a funny thing how so many reviewers may condescend to it, but while they're watching it you could hear a pin drop.

An enjoyable one, in a whacky could-they-really-do-that sort of a way.