Interesting movie on the struggle of recognition and sexual consent

Rating: 6/10 (1 March 2017)

I didn't expect to enjoy this movie at all, but, to my surprise, I did. It is a movie about the struggle for sexual recognition and freedom. It is about a couple who love each other, but they cannot give in and completely surrender to each other's desires. This movie is deeply existential and Sartrian. In love, as Sartre says,"the lover wants to be 'the whole world' for the beloved", and sexual desire is mainly about conflict (in the Hegelian sense of the master and slave dialectic). In this struggle for owning each other and subjugating each other's desires (in other to affirm our freedom as individuals), they both lose. Although they both understand the game of sex and love in the end, they are unwilling to play by it (by surrendering) and they both end up hurt.
I was also very impressed by how feminist the movie is. He is obsessed with obtaining her consent. All her experience with men was with men who were totally indifferent to her desires and consent. Remember the man (her friend outside the pub when she was totally drunk) who was almost forcing himself upon her just to get a kiss. The movie shows us what real consent looks like: straightforward, negotiated, not taken for granted, with safe words with are able to communicate refusal. And, precisely because of this, it is seen as unromantic. Yes, our culture eroticizes sexual violence and rape and we would rather criticise the man who asks us explicitly if we consent than the man who takes it for granted and doesn't care. The main character is obsessed with getting her consent. He is very attentive to her wants and desires. She is not used to it and that's precisely why it seems so strange to her (and to us).
I didn't rate it that well, despite all the good things in it, because it is not directed very well, the actors are not that good and they could have tried a bit better with the script. So, it is not a good movie overall, but it makes many excellent points.