Henry and June (1990)

Philip Kaufman tries to recreate 1931 Paris in much the same way he successfully recreated 1968 Prague in 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', and with roughly the same ménage-a-trois. But in trying to make lightning strike twice he apparently lost sight of the difference between sexual liberation and self-indulgence, and what was meant (again) to be an uncensored celebration of life and love resembles, here, something not unlike '9½ Weeks' for egghead intellectuals. Perhaps avid Henry Miller fans will appreciate all the highbrow eroticism, but for most of the film the characters do little else except agonize over Art and tell one another what geniuses they each are. Kaufman's luck with casting is unimpaired (Uma Thurmon's June Miller calls to mind Greta Garbo doing an imitation of Mae West), but his direction is almost comically self-conscious, built around a visual scheme of tight, TV screen close-ups and an oh, so naughty depiction of libertine Paris which pales next to Alan Rudolph's similar but more colorful portrait in 'The Moderns'. Posterity will remember the film for its groundbreaking adults only NC-17 rating, a distinction hardly earned by such tame soft-core entertainment.

Fmovies: A lot was good here. One of the thing that was "bad" was almost certainly deliberate -- the contrast between the coarse, gross facial features of Fred Ward, in juxtaposition with the extremely delicate visage of Maria de Medeiros. One thing that could have been better: the "baldness" of Fred Ward. I don't know him, and don't know if he's bald, but this looked like a very bad make-up job. Surely they could do better in 1990. Or did Miller shave the top of his head and pretend to be bald? I don't know, but I doubt it. In spite of the title, the movie is really about Anais Nin. This was a fine performance by Miss de Medieros, and is worth watching for that alone. It won't appeal to the car chase-and-explosion crowd, but it's not for them anyway. I don't see what made the difference from an "R" rating.

What, I wonder, is the superlative of pretentious. Yes, I know that it's 'most pretentious,' but that doesn't seem dramatic enough to describe this very long, long journey into total self-congratulatory eroticism. The film is based on portions of Anais Nin's diaries -- she wrote something like 9,000 pages, and you don't need to read more than a tenth of those to know that you are in the hands of one of the most self absorbed women who ever walked the planet. For one who is supposed to have been all about Art, she really seems to have been all about Anais. Nothing else much mattered. And this film, which is supposed to focus on her relationship with Henry and June Miller, really is all about her. The more libidinous she becomes the more 'innocent' she claims to be.

Anyway, about the movie: Maria de Medeiros has an amazing, triangular face with huge eyes. Her unique looks and tiny perfect body make us pay attention. I found Fred Ward's Henry Miller a bit too thick to be convincing. Somehow, from what I've read of Miller, I think he would have been a lot more intuitive and sensitive to the female psyche (we know he knew a lot about the female physique). Uma Thurman was wonderful as June. Really a stellar, moving performance. I wanted to see more of June because I was left not quite understanding how she worked. I guess Henry and Anais didn't either.

Henry and June fmovies. I really enjoyed seeing Henry and June again on the satellite – 15 years after its release. The relationship between June and Anaïs - and between both of them and Henry is dark, sensual, and at times, graphic. This is a very "steamy" movie for its time. From time to time characters seem to just disappear - especially Henry - leaving Anaïs and Henry to explore their feeling and passions.

Kevin Spacey has a very small role here- only a hint of what he will become.

The classical music used for the opening scene is by Stravinsky - Le Sacre du Printemps - it's perfect for the mood. The musical score has several "smoky" and sultry French songs that make you want to have been in Paris back in the 20's. There are a few jazz tracks and scenes in jazz nightspots.

The filming captures the "look" and "feel" of Paris in the 20's - with a hint of a war to come. The antique cars barely fit between the buildings - just as today!

If you have not seen Henry and June - find it and watch it - after the children are in bed.

Director Phillip Kaufman stirred up quite a bit of controversy when this film was first being released, most likely because of the intensity of the love scenes, but after watching the DVD I am now thinking that this film could have maybe slipped by with an R rating. The film faired poorly at the box-office, but seemed to have received generally positive reviews. The best element of this film is the atmosphere, which truly resembles the time period in which the film takes place. The story of the romance between the two writers is interesting on its own, but the great acting gives it a boost. Overall, a highly worthwhile film that will come as a pleasant surprise. The 6.3 rating is too low. I would say it deserves at the very least a 7. Ill give it an 8.

Why is it that movies that are groundbreaking and controversial because of their prurient content are almost always never really great films to begin with? "Deep Throat" (1972) was the very first hardcore porn film that modern-day audiences went to see in droves, yet it was not a good movie, and was far from erotic or sexy. "Fritz The Cat" (1972) was the first animated motion picture to be rated X, yet it was a series of vignettes with a character who was really a jerk. With its shock value, it was underwhelming at best.

"Henry & June" does not sound like a controversial movie, but it made movie history when it became the first mainstream motion picture to earn the NC-17 rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. That rating was the permanent replacement for the X rating to differentiate explicit mainstream films from pornographic films in the eyes of moviegoers. While it's easy to see why the movie got an NC-17 rating, it's not a very good movie otherwise overall.

"Henry & June" is based on a true story that was brought to the public's attention from diaries written by Anais (pronounced en-NIGH-eese) Nin. Nin is portrayed by Maria de Medeiros, who is the best actor in this film by far, and really saves it from being a forgettable mess. In fact, the film centers so much on Medeiros' character that you sometimes wonder as you're watching this film "What's so great about Henry & June? Why wasn't the film called "Anais"?"

Well, Henry is Henry Miller (Fred Ward), an American author who resides in Paris, France to complete a book he wants to title "Tropic of Cancer". He finishes the novel, but it becomes one of the most controversial books of the 20th century. More on that later.

June (Uma Thurman) is Henry's wife who feels more like an on-again, off-again girlfriend. She is an actress who is also from the United States. She's married to Henry, but they fight, and she travels back to the U.S. This happens about three times in the film.

Thurman is a very good actress who was great in "Dangerous Liasons" (1988) and later in "Pulp Fiction". Here, her acting felt stiff and forced, not only with her bad New York accent which sounded like a horrible impression of Mae West. I just really wasn't convinced when she fought with Ward on screen. I detected no emotion of any kind when she was supposed to be emotional, and you could almost see the traces of glycerin when she was supposed to cry.

Another person who acted pretty badly here was Richard E. Grant, who played Anais' husband Hugo Guiler. It seemed like Grant's main role in this film was to criticize Anais for not coming to social functions, and to turn the other eye when Anais had affairs with both Henry and June. Maybe that was the point of his role, but Grant was not even the slightest bit convincing. Every line he spoke sounded as if he was reading it from a cue card.

So this film is about decaying marriages in the midst of Paris and a social circle of struggling writers, and was very reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" in many respects. So why did it deserve the NC-17 rating?

My opinion is that it didn't, and it seemed as though the filmmakers threw in prostitutes and nudity in an attempt to purposefully go beyond the R-rating. Even then, I thought the sex scenes, especially the ones with prostitutes, didn't contribute we