Product: Dry Cleaning [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 3.0
A Near Miss
This film is a wonderful, intriguing character study that completely falls apart in its reprehensible last five minutes. The majority of the film explores the variety of longings people possess, and how they manage expressing-- or repressing-- these longings. Two couples are contrasted in lifestyle, but the film gradually and creatively shows how the two pairs are less different than might seem apparent at first glance. The ways the couples interact makes for interesting viewing, and for this reason would warrant a four-star rating.Tragically, the filmmaker seems to want her cake and eat it too. The story is not content to chart divided and varied longings-- it disguises itself as a progressive look at erotic behavior (if it can be considered progressive to show non-conformist sexual relationships after at least 40 years of such depictions on film). But ultimately it becomes clear that what the director really wants is to titillate with scenes that might be considered illicit to the bourgeois audience members and then reassure the conservatives that such illicit behavior will not go without punishment. Haven't we gotten past such stilted conventions and pandering to narrow-mindedness? This proves to be a fatal misjudgment in an otherwise interesting movie.