A morbid, convoluted mystery involving a pair of lovers whose turbulent affair has driven one to attempted suicide and the other to something worse, BAD TIMING is obsessed with the power of lust and guilt. Alex (Art Garfunkel) believes that he and Milena (Theresa Russell) are having a
very intellectual affair: they read Blake and go to a Gustav Klimt exhibition; they have a quickie on Freud's couch and visit Morocco in homage to Paul Bowles's "The Sheltering Sky." But they are soon be overwhelmed by the demons of their own desire.
In a Vienna emergency room, beautiful young American Milena is near death from an overdose of pills. She's accompanied by her former lover, Alex Linden, also an American. The hospital staff is suspicious of his account of events; the timing doesn't match her condition, and they suspect foul play.
The police send Inspector Netusil (Harvey Keitel) to investigate. Why, he asks, did Alex wait so long before calling an ambulance? Alex says Milena called him--but when? Was he with her when she took the pills, or did he arrive at her apartment later, as he claims? What did he do once he was
there? Netusil knows Alex did something wrong; he alternately bullies and cajoles, trying to get Alex to admit that he ravished Milena. He promises that he only wants to know, and Alex's confession will have no legal ramifications.
In a series of flashbacks intercut with grisly scenes of Milena's battle for life on the operating table, the story of her affair with Alex unfolds. Alex is a rule-bound academic, teaching psychology and living in a spartan apartment so neat that it's hard to believe anyone is home. Milena is an
awkward hedonist, driven by chaotic emotions, and her life is spiraling out of control. She's separated from her much older, Czechoslovakian husband, Stefan (Denholm Elliott), drinks too much, parties too hard, dispenses her favors too freely. She boldly propositions Alex at a party, and their
relationship begins in a whirl of great sex and manic fun. But Alex becomes jealous and possessive; Milena responds with ever-wilder behavior, and their relationship degenerates into a maelstrom of screaming fights and angry sex. Their break-up is acrimonious, and when Milena calls, slurring her
words and threatening suicide, Alex is unsympathetic. When he finally goes to her apartment, he berates her until she passes out, then has sex with her before calling for an ambulance.
Netusil listens gravely to Alex's sordid revelations, but no charges are brought. Milena recovers, and the film ends as Alex catches a glimpse of her on the street: She's still beautiful, older and more polished, her throat marked by an ugly, puckered tracheotomy scar.
Shot under the title "Illusions," BAD TIMING bills itself as a sensual obsession, and its original version was sufficiently explicit to earn an X rating. Distributor World Northal appealed and lost, eventually releasing it unrated. Nicolas Roeg, one of two directors of the perversely erotic
PERFORMANCE (1976)--the other was Donald Cammell--is a former cinematographer with a libertine's eye, and manages to incorporate erotic material into virtually all his work. The eerie horror film DON'T LOOK NOW (1973), for example, was once notorious for its extended sex scene between Julie
Christie and Donald Sutherland. BAD TIMING is built around the wanton appeal of Theresa Russell. Her Milena is a destroying angel of erotic liberation who shatters Alex's fantasy of sex as escape from the demands of bourgeois society. Russell--who had only appeared in two previous films, THE LAST
TYCOON (1976) and STRAIGHT TIME (1978)--is the heart of BAD TIMING's sensual maelstrom. Surprisingly, wan Sissy Spacek was originally cast as Milena and only replaced because of scheduling conflicts: She was making COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER when BAD TIMING was ready to shoot. (Extensive nudity, sexual
situations, adult situations, violence, profanity.) leave a comment
