Molly Parker is the rock drummer Florence, who makes her living as a stripper and lap dancer. She stipulates no kissing, and she will only serve his fantasies between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. Her own fantasies seem abstracted, a case of rut by rote, while he tends to be passive and tranced by gratitude. Parker preens and pincers her svelte legs as antennae of desire, while her pretty face is often a flat mask. Her sexiest scene is not in the well-filmed erotic meetings, but her application of makeup, a ritual that delights Wang's lucid eye. The obsessives don't bring much past to the party, or much force of curiosity.
Moods floating around the sex often have a filmy haze of contemporary importance.
But if this is sexual politics, it has a lot of missing chads. Richard's assertion of love has the pathos of a programmer who wishes a new virus to be friendly, perhaps comforting. Possibly, mediocre rock drumming and playing computer games are not the best rehearsal for a soul duel of the sexes. It takes Carla Gugino as Florence's available friend, Jerri, to invest brief scenes with the passion of a life truly at risk. An Artisan Entertainment release.