Theresa Russell plays her character with an amazing degree of depth and variety in this film. She's sexy, vivacious, fun-loving, wanton, capricious, headstrong, and yet vulnerable to the soulless, self-serving shrink portrayed chillingly well by Art Garfunkel. Theresa's character is very lifelike and (despite the character's flaws, both obvious and subtle) also quite sympathetic.
This is not an easy film to watch. For one thing, it's rather non-linear, and flits around between several different times and places. Rather than telling a story as such, it's more of a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of which are revealed and placed one at a time. For another, it's actually rather unnerving to watch the process of her dissolution, both due to how realistically it's shown and the fact that we want to like Malena (or at least I did).
If you're at all a fan of Russell, I think you'll find that this is one of her best performances ever, and the direction and staging are first-rate.
(It was also a bit weird to see Harvey Keitel with long hair.)
This is not an easy film to watch. For one thing, it's rather non-linear, and flits around between several different times and places. Rather than telling a story as such, it's more of a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of which are revealed and placed one at a time. For another, it's actually rather unnerving to watch the process of her dissolution, both due to how realistically it's shown and the fact that we want to like Malena (or at least I did).
If you're at all a fan of Russell, I think you'll find that this is one of her best performances ever, and the direction and staging are first-rate.
(It was also a bit weird to see Harvey Keitel with long hair.)