User Reviews

His movie rates high in production value and acting and has an innovative approach to an old story…

The film is basically a character study… Alex (Art Garfunkel) is a depressingly dark and shadowy American psychoanalyst living in Vienna… Theresa Russell plays Milena, a resonant, carefree American girl… They meet by chance at a party and are thrown into a roller-coaster ride of an erotic relationship… He wants to smash her free spirit because he can't understand it, but she won't let him… The result is a near-fatal break-up…

Roeg comes close to the story from the middle (obeying Jean-Luc Godard's authoritative saying, a film "must have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order." We quickly move to the different parts of Alex and Milena's relationship, moving through time as if it were Jell-O. The editing is intricate, but not confusing… As we change location back and forth, we begin to see more clearly how these two unlikely lovers ever got together…

The motion picture is filled with exceptional images, and Theresa Russell is outstanding

When this movie was shown on television a couple of days ago, I had never heard of it before, but given the fact that it has received less than 600 votes until now, even though it is already from 1980, means that I'm not the only one who didn't know of its existence. Apparently some things went wrong with the distribution and the dark content of the movie was probably not what they were used to see at that time either. Does that mean that it is a bad movie? Far from it, the story for instance is multi-layered, interesting and quite impressive.

It all starts with a young American woman who is brought to a hospital in Vienna after a suicide attempt by overdosing on pills. But the police detective that investigates the case suspects that there is more going on than what her lover, an American psychology professor, wants to admit. As the doctors do everything possible to save the woman's life, the professor is thoroughly interrogated by the detective. Through a series of flashbacks, we see how the relationship between the two started and evolved and what that had to do with the suicide attempt. Everything will be shown: their passionate sexual relationship, her drinking problem, the numerous affairs that both have, her hidden marriage...

As I already said, this is a multi-layered story. For me, that makes this movie only more interesting, but I have the feeling that not that many people can cope with it, as today we are only used to see straight and easy stories which don't demand too much of our brains. This movie combines all kinds of aspects like espionage during the Cold War, romance, thriller, drama,... but always feels like one solid film. That only proves the skills of the director and the screenwriter of course. It was the first time that I saw a movie from the hand of director Nicolas Roeg and Yale Udoff is a complete stranger to me as well. But together they made the entire story work.

The fact that this is such a solid movie also has a lot to do with the good acting. Not that I expected anything else from people like Harvey Keitel and Theresa Russell, but Art Garfunkel certainly surprised me. Normally I don't like all those singers / would-be actors who only appear in movies to get the movie a larger audience (not that it worked this time) and not because they know anything about acting. But when their performance is OK, I'll be the first one to admit it as well and so I say here that Art Garfunkel was really very good in this movie.

Overall this is a very good movie with an interesting story and some very fine acting. It's too bad that it isn't better known, because it certainly deserves to be seen by a much larger audience. I give this movie at least a 7.5/10, maybe even an 8/10.

BAD TIMING is the one Nicolas Roeg film (from his initial period of peerlessly brilliant movies) which had so far eluded me; actually, for some reason, I had missed out on its one and only TV screening in my neck of the woods.

Following in the footsteps of Mick Jagger in PERFORMANCE (1970) and David Bowie in THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976), Art Garfunkel was the third pop star to be engaged as an actor by Roeg. Harvey Keitel, on the other hand, was not Roeg's first choice for Inspector Netusil: the role had previously been offered to Albert Finney and Bruno Ganz (both of whom turned it down) and Malcolm McDowell (who was unavailable). While their casting is indeed eccentric, contrary to the general opinion, I found them both very good in their difficult roles. Despite her young age and the complexity of the character she was playing, the stunning Theresa Russell - who turned down SUPERMAN (1978) to do this but, ironically, is now currently engaged on SPIDER-MAN 3! - is simply astonishing in the film and she should by rights have become a huge star because of it; as it is, she ended up being criminally underused and her career has subsequently been disappointingly uneven.

While the film's working title was ILLUSIONS, its eventual title could be referring to the chance meeting between Garfunkel and Russell at a party (had either of them left earlier, they might never have met), to Garfunkel's inexplicably sluggish movements on the night of Russell's suicide attempt (which are under Keitel's dogged scrutiny) or even to estranged husband Denholm Elliott's reporting of Russell's recovery just as Garfunkel is about to break down under Keitel's relentless questioning and confess to his ravishment of her while she was practically comatose. Tragically, Garfunkel's plight in the film was eerily mirrored in real-life towards the end of shooting when his own girlfriend Laurie Bird - whose brief acting career included two films for Monte Hellman, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971) and COCKFIGHTER (1974) - committed suicide in their apartment. Clearly one of Roeg's most personal films, BAD TIMING is not only a harrowing study of male-female relationships or more precisely "l'amour fou", but is also another depiction by Roeg (as had been the case with all his previous pictures) of characters stranded in a foreign land, in this case two Americans in Vienna. In hindsight, the tumultuous and almost deadly Garfunkel-Russell relationship is mirrored in the one between Garfunkel and Keitel, especially in the film's latter stages when the interrogation and subsequent revelation take center stage; the latter sequences, then, are capped by an enigmatic ending - due to Elliott's nick-of-time appearance and subsequent dematerialization - could this be a figment of Garfunkel's agitated state of mind? BAD TIMING is shot in Roeg's typically fragmented style which, this time around, can perhaps be explained by the fact that the narrator (Art or Theresa) is under a lot of emotional (Keitel's interrogation of Art) and physical (Theresa's life-saving surgery) strain. In another sense, BAD TIMING can even be seen as a sophisticated precursor to the erotic thrillers so prevalent in filmdom from the late-80s onwards.

For the third consecutive time, Anthony Richmond serves as director of photography for Roeg and the film also boasts a splendidly eclectic soundtrack - Billy Holliday, Keith Jarrett, The Who, Tom Waits, not to mention some typical Viennese zither music a' la THE THIRD MAN (1949) - an inspired choice to be sure but, ironically, the prohibitive rights issue costs were also one of the reasons why BAD TIMING has been out of the public eye for so long.

The Criterion DVD is therefore a very welcome introduction for me to this essential film. Intriguingly, it transpires that the film's backers, The Rank Organization, dubbed BAD TIMING "a sick film by sick people for sick people" and subsequently not only dropped their famous gong logo from the credit titles but refused to show it in their chain of theaters! Interestingly, the outline of the story emerged from an aborted collaboration between Roeg and famed Italian producer Carlo Ponti. Disappointingly, unlike Criterion's other Roeg DVDs, WALKABOUT (1971) and THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, there is no Audio Commentary to be found here although Roeg is in a jovial mood in the accompanying interview. Also, a couple of the deleted scenes were quite good, particularly one in which Russell crashes a party and embarrasses Garfunkel with her drunken and lewd antics. For the record, during the four-year hiatus between THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH and BAD TIMING, Roeg had been connected with several high-profile projects which were eventually helmed by other people, namely FLASH GORDON (Mike Hodges, 1980), HAMMETT (Wim Wenders, 1982) and OUT OF Africa (Sydney Pollack, 1985). Unfortunately, Roeg's decline has proved to been one of the saddest in recent memory but his two current productions - PUFFBALL and ADINA - sound promising at least and hopefully they will come to fruition eventually!

Actually, after this viewing of BAD TIMING, I regret not purchasing Roeg's previous film, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, when Deep Discount DVD had their recent Criterion sale. However, I should be giving Roeg's subsequent film, (also starring his then wife Theresa Russell) EUREKA (1984), a first look via my VHS copy; actually, had it not been for the recent interview with the still gorgeous Russell conducted for the BAD TIMING DVD, I wouldn't have known that Roeg and Russell had separated!

When BAD TIMING: A SENSUAL OBSESSION emerged in 1980, its distributor dropped it like a hot potato. Sex! Surgery! Semen stains! Strippers rolling around on meshy overwire! It was all too much for the Rank Organization, a fading production empire with a long history of releasing family classics like GREAT EXPECTATIONS. (Curiously, Rank did sponsor a 'Win a trip to Vienna, location of BAD TIMING!' publicity contest at early bookings). The only reason they financed the picture, allegedly, was for its Freudian-tinged pedigree. When they saw the finished product, they labeled it 'a film about sick people, made by sick people, for sick people.'

Deviant psychology is but one of the many twisted pleasures in this tragically neglected masterpiece from '70s visionary Nicolas Roeg. With iconoclastic films like WALKABOUT, DON'T LOOK NOW and MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, Roeg pioneered a new kind of film language. He replaced traditional narrative storytelling with stunning photography, explicit carnality and a signature editing style of jump cuts, cross cuts and subliminal flicker cuts Mixmastered into a mosaic of multiple interpretations. (Unlike today's A.D.D.-inducing overkill, Roeg's fragmentary cutting technique always provided insight into character psychology.) To those of us weaned on art cinema in the '70s and energized by the limitless possibilities of the medium, Nicolas Roeg was (and remains) a god. No filmmaker since has picked up the maverick torch that this deity carried for more than a decade.

Trying to encapsulate BAD TIMING's nuanced, character-driven plot is like describing Europe in a postcard. Essentially, it's about an eroticized interpersonal attraction that goes horribly awry, spiraling into jealousy, paranoia and (of course) sexual obsession. Theresa Russell's wild child Milena (the personification of Henry James' headstrong American girl abroad) is compulsively drawn to a fellow Yank stationed in Austria -- the buttoned-down, Freudian shrink/visiting prof Dr. Linden. Their passionate affair has led to a potentially tragic outcome, and it's up to a local police inspector (Harvey Keitel) to sort out what went wrong, why, and whether criminal malice was involved.

What makes this relationship drama so compelling is Roeg's structure: the film starts in the middle, jumps ahead to the end, then back to the prologue within the first four minutes – and continues in a non-linear fashion until the final shot. It takes us viewers a while to get our bearing, but it also elicits our rapt attention to detail. Never are we certain if the cascading flashbacks are meant to be objective on the filmmaker's part, or the skewed perspective of one of the three main characters. Is Russell a victim, or a tramp? Is Garfunkel a creep, or is that just Keitel's projection? Is Keitel a sympathetic doppelganger, or a crafty manipulator? The stars turn in complex, though off-center performances. Keitel turns miscasting to his advantage; never has he underplayed 'menacing' like he does here. Garfunkel's lack of charisma will turn many viewers off, but he's 100% believable as a shrewd, unstable shrink. Yet it's Russell who's the revelation – those who subscribe to the lazy theory that she can't act will be astonished here. What she may lack in formal technique, she compensates with fearless commitment. Hers may be the most passionate performance by a 21-year old ever captured on film.

Tony Richmond's widescreen photography is particularly rich in color and composition (the film's look was based on the art of Gustav Klimt). He shows us a Vienna that's cold, academic, clinical – but electric whenever Russell's on screen. There's a sequence in a university courtyard where he changes lenses, practically from shot to shot, to convey Russell's emotional collapse. (In the background, Keith Jarrett's 'Köln Concert' mourns her sad dilemma.) It's a heartbreaking passage, poetically surpassed only by the connecting shot of Garfunkel brooding through a polarized car windshield at daybreak. Frequently Richmond balances the stars' close-ups on the very edge of the screen, which is why the film's power is neutered on cable TV, where 2/3 of the image is lopped off. In that pan-and-scan atrocity, the screen is forever hovering on backgrounds and earlobes.

The real tragedy is that BAD TIMING has never been released on any home video format, and I fear it may never happen. It was made at a time when music licenses weren't automatically cleared for home viewing. Considering the eclectic soundtrack incorporates Jarrett, Tom Waits, The Who, Billie Holiday, Harry Partch and others, the idea of renegotiating deals at this point would be any lawyer's nightmare. Even worse, Roeg himself believes the few prints that Rank struck are probably lost or damaged beyond repair, and one fears for the state of the negative. My overlong, effusive review here is a direct plea for a rescue operation. Is any entrepreneurial DVD-releasing outfit willing to salvage this forgotten treasure from obscurity and give it the best letterboxed release possible? Once people are able to see this film as it was intended – for the first time in 24 years or more – I believe its reputation will grow immeasurably. There is simply no other film like it, and, based on current popular trends, nor will there ever be.

It's Nicolas Roeg so you know it won't be straightforward and it isn't. It opens with Klimt on the credits and Tom Waits at his smokiest and then we're at the beginning of the story or maybe we're at the end. Time doesn't really stand still in the first five minutes . All we really know is that a comatose Theresa Russell is being rushed to the emergency ward accompanied by a not-too-worried looking Art Garfunkel while the film jumps back to when they met withour really explaining who they are.

"Bad Timing" isn't a pleasant film and I didn't like it first time round but with Roeg it's easy to recognize the brilliance, the construction and even people who don't like Roeg often admire his work and there are a few of his admirers who consider "Bad Timing" his masterpiece. Yes, it's a director's picture but it's also an actor's picture though you may feel Garfunkel hopelessly miscast as a brilliant psychoanalyst; after all, wasn't he the 'lesser' half of Simon and Garfunkel.

Actually I've always thought Garfukel a very fine actor and he's very fine here; blank, chilly and not at all likeable, a man living entirely within himself. Russell's teriffic, of course. Like Monroe she was never a great actress but like Monroe she could be great, fully embodying the character she was playing and pouring more of herself into the part than may have been necessary. The supporting cast includes Harvey Keital and Denholm Elliott and they are excellent even if Keitel is a very American Austrian policeman. The brilliant cinematography is once again by Anthony Richmond and Yale Udoff wrote the elliptical screenplay. I still didn't like the film but I can see the brilliance.

Bad Timing is not an easy film, but one that rewards effort. Art Garfunkel joins the line (Jagger, Bowie) of singers who produced career best acting performances for this director - the scene of him smoking while staring over a bridge into the abyss of his life is worth buying the dvd alone - and Theresa Russell is simply incendiary. The story is a relatively simple one of how two people who should never have got together become obsessed with each other, but is told in Nicolas Roeg's fluid, labyrinthine style with flashes back and forward and disconcerting edits. The sexual content is extreme for some tastes, but raw and painfully honest in a way which defies simple titillation. Intense work from one of the giants of British and world cinema, now sadly neglected, and one of a string of great films, Performance, Walkabout, Don't Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth which mark Nicolas Roeg out as a great director.

The main asset of "Bad Timing" is the way it composes its story about a messy relationship between a psychiatrist/teacher (Art Garfunkel) with a sensual beautiful married woman (Theresa Russell) in Vienna, and a critical aftermath where she lies in a hospital after an alleged suicide attempt that its investigated by an inspector (Harvel Keitel).

Yale Udoff's script only comes in a favorable light due to director Nicolas Roeg's decisions in putting all together with great style, countless flashbacks and some usual tricks on his sleeve as he captures elements, characters, objects to give this a thrilling substance that it's almost non-existent. To some it might be a festival of boredom and headache, to others it's a mysterious story that has some intriguing elements that makes everything look interesting. I'm somewhat in between those groups, though I liked it. Not as much as Roeg's other films but it worked for me as long as there was things to get investigated rather than seeing an odd couple's dynamics.

It's a slightly gripping puzzle of a movie where we try to understand the reason behind Theresa's character suicide attempt, if she'll make it through, if she did it herself or maybe the doctor/teacher was involved in some way. And the story isn't told in a linear fashion, there are countless of flashbacks and flashforwards as Garfunkel's mind hides facts from the inspector, or at times we are seeing through the beautiful woman's thoughts as she keeps coming back to life on and on, and such technique helps the movie in becoming a memorable experience; had it been told as linear beginning, middle and ending it would be just a simple little movie.

It might sound that "Bad Timing" is pompous just because of this device since the story itself only presents more of the same while dealing with sexual obsession, love, fantasies, troubled relationships. But it's curious to see some intelligence in it, since some cliches are avoided - the beautiful woman sure has plenty of troubles of her own, she's quite mysterious but very depressive and she's also an addict.

On the other dr. Alex, for a man in control of everything around him, and a man of many knowledges in his field, can barely deal with other people around him - either his sexual obsession with the woman, which drives him nuts if she wants to stay at home with him, just chatting; or either the way he deals with the inspector and his assistant where he challenges them during questioning, never answers them quite exactly. He's completely erratic.

And on the issue of him again, why on Earth we had Art Garfunkel playing this lame character? The man has a charimsa and the sexiness of a folding door, and one wonders what a girl like Russell would see in a guy like him. It can't be for his brightness and eloquence since they barely have some intelligent discourse about pyschoanalysis or anything. But they deal great in the art of seduction - as amazingly shown at their first meeting at a party where she uses of her long legs to stop him from leaving the room. They also go extremely fine in bed and Art proves it well that he doesn't need body doubles for some spicy sequences. Yet I couldn't stand that character, it feels like he's going at war with everyone he meets.

A sub-plot that could be discard or better developed comes with the ex-husband, played by the great late Denholm Elliott. It's hardly ever discussed why their marriage fell apart or why he graciously accepts her decision to leave him and he takes her to cross the border to Austria. When the doctor discovers about this previous marriage, there's a whole investigation he does, some small info is thrown to us almost as if that were some Cold War secret plan but it amounts to nothing. Surely it creates an aura of mystery but it just prolongues the story.

Though I had a hard time during the viewing (some attempts to finally reach it fully), I end up liking it. What Mr. Roeg does with his camera, the way it moves through characters and sequences, Tony Lawson's editing and even some moments of the score, made the experience a quite intriguing puzzle that I felt the needed to be solved. It doesn't answer everything, audiences can theorize about many things - specially Keitel's conclusions of what went down that night in that messy room. And if a director allows you about possibilities instead of explaining everything, then you can have a decent film, despite some obstacles. 6/10.

Bad Timing is Nicholas Roeg's film about a relationship that is fueled by an obsessive passion, more or less, on both sides, and ends in a kind of mutual destruction. This has been fodder for many an independent film, but Roeg and his screenwriter attempt the material with a twist (Roeg, perhaps in his own distinct sensibility as an auteur, more-so). They're attempting to dissect it by a manner that goes along with how a mind works through a relationship after the fact, through memories of what worked, what didn't at all, what's foggy, what's crazy, subtle bits that connect more directly to others, and essentially reveals as much as any one person can think about the individuals in their link. Throw in a little detective/criminal mystery entanglement, some trademark Roeg editing and narrative technique, and sprinkle some of the most appropriately steamy (and appropriately disturbing) mature sexual context in a movie since Last Tango, and you've got a sort of cult classic.

It's the kind of work that, as someone who loves getting a filmmaker who approaches things from a skewed perspective almost like an intellectual, is nearly inspiring. I didn't gain mind-blowing Bergmanesque insights into the realm of a torn relationship, but it's enough to squash competition that might show up late at night on IFC. It deals with a psychology professor, Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel, the most unlikely of male leads for a sexually charged and complex individual, but out-does his previous turn in Carnal Knowledge as a subtle performer of a man in total emotional crisis), and his romance with young Milena (the extraordinary Theresa Russel, arguably her best performance to date, soul pouring out like it's her one and only chance to shine), who is possibly already married to a much older man across the Vienna border (Denhalm Elliot, great in his few scenes).

They have powerful lust and some good times, even in Morocco of all places, but... they just don't click, due to Alex not being able to let go of what Milena does, almost in a "every breath you take" style (watch as the Who's "Who Are You" is used in the most stirring effect imaginable). Without saying too much, something terrible happens to Milena, a hospital stay occurs, and an investigation (overnight, of course) happens between a detective (long-haired Harvey Keitel, compelling even when it's only in the smallest, two-note spurts) which leads to a test of pure existential upheaval. But Roeg firstly approaches the style like it's a shuffleboard of images and scenes, moods and thoughts, and it's a wonderful experiment in subjective approach. Many post-modern filmmakers only wish to try and make a film dealing with genre (i.e. crime/gangsters) like this, but Roeg does it sometimes subliminally, cut-aways implying sexual interaction and obsession that go the opposite way of the pondering style of a Last Tango (i.e. the operation scene, a cut-away between a tense gynecological exam during surgery and sex).

The other thing that Roeg wisely does, as he did do sort of in Walkabout, is to let the actors play up to their strengths. While it was trickier to to as a director, and to actually notice in the finished product, in Walkabout, in Bad Timing there are countless scenes where we see the actors tapping into the characters full-throttle, and revealing little layers in the script that wouldn't be present in a more conventional treatment. It's simple to say this kind of material would get shut out at the door in Hollywood. Sure it would; it's a tale where lurid details (and truly disturbing ones, more-so for how they linger in the mind than how they're shown) seem to mask the more vulnerable shades of the story. But it's difficult to say that it might have more appeal than the one infamous quote "a sick movie made by sick people for sick people" seems to suggest.

It is rough going at times, and not your grandmother's story of love gone awry. But it challenges perceptions and tries to pierce through certain concepts of what men expect from women and women expect from men: the lies, the hiding, being open, being free, being who we are in front of one another. At the end, what is the "bond" in a relationship? Do we know one another really? Roeg leaves it up to us to decide... in his sick way. And it's one of my favorites of 1980.

In the 1970s Nicolas Roeg had a reputation as something of an experimental avant-garde director whose style was noted for non-linear narrative, extensive cross-cutting involving the juxtaposition of contrasting images and a brooding sense of menace and foreboding. His first two films as sole director were both excellent ones, "Walkabout" from 1971 and "Don't Look Now" from 1973, but I have never cared for his third film, the overlong, confusing and self-consciously arty "The Man who Fell to Earth".

"Bad Timing", made in 1980, was Roeg's fourth film. The narrative is non-linear in the extreme. It opens with a young American woman, Milena Vognic, being rushed to hospital in Vienna after a drug overdose, probably a suicide attempt. In a series of flashbacks we learn about Milena's past- her marriage to her older Czech husband Stefan, from whom she is estranged (it is not made clear whether they are actually divorced), and her stormy relationship with her boyfriend Alex, an American-born lecturer at Vienna University. Intercut with these are scenes showing Milena lying in the hospital and showing Alex being interviewed by a detective who suspects him of foul play.

Roeg suffered the misfortune of seeing his film disowned by its distributor, the Rank Organisation, who denounced it as "a film about sick people, made by sick people, for sick people". (I say "misfortune", but I suspect that actually a lot of art-house directors would regard criticism like that as a badge of honour). What upset them was presumably the explicit sex scenes, although Rank really should have known what to expect from Roeg. He was, after all, the man responsible for "Don't Look Now", with its controversial love scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie.

In one respect, however, Rank's criticism is accurate; "Bad Timing" is indeed a film about "sick people". Milena and Alex are clearly, psychologically speaking, damaged goods. Their relationship is essentially a sadomasochistic one- not physical sadomasochism but a form of emotional sadomasochism involving both mutual desire and mutual loathing. The film can be seen as a psychological case-study; it is significant that psychology is the subject which Alex teaches, and also that the film is set in Vienna, the city of Freud.

I have nothing against non-linear narration in principle; it can often be an effective (sometimes the most effective) way of telling a story. It is, moreover, not necessarily a modernist or avant-garde idea. Those who think of it as an invention of the French "Nouvelle Vague" of the sixties should watch John Brahm's "The Locket" from 1946, a film with a particularly intricate "flashback within a flashback within a flashback" structure. (That film was also a psychological case study). In the case of "Bad Timing", however, the film's narrative structure makes it confusing and difficult to follow. Although it aims at a psychological study of the two main characters, we do not learn enough about them to enable us to understand them. I was left wanting to know more about the background to Milena's relationship with Alex (and, even more, about her rather mysterious relationship with Stefan). As the critic of "Variety" put it, most of the milestones are missing from the characters' tortuous psychological route.

Another criticism I would have would be the casting of Art Garfunkel as Alex. Much as I admire Garfunkel for his musical achievements, he was not, on the evidence of this film, much of an actor. Roeg clearly liked using rock stars in his films, because the leading role in "The Man who Fell to Earth" is taken by David Bowie, an equally unsuccessful piece of casting. (To be fair to Bowie, he was to give better performances in some of his later films).

The gorgeous Theresa Russell, who was later to become Roeg's wife, is better as Milena, and, as is often the case with Roeg, there are some striking visual touches. Overall, however, "Bad Timing" is the sort of experimental film which reminds us that not every experiment, whether in science or the arts, is a successful one. 4/10

Art Garfunkel in his one great role as an American college psychology professor lusting after student Theresa Russell somewhere in Austria set in the late 70s. The camera work is amazing and keeps the same pace as the subtle plot lines and aesthetically deft sound score. Harvey Keitel plays a systematically intense police detective who has to unravel the near death of Russell following a harrowing sexual attack and drug overdose. Garfunkel is moody, and sophisticated, while never controlling as much as he is controlled by Ms Russell's ingenuous charms. Quite a psychological thriller, and a movie completely in it's own fresh mold. Anybody coming upon this film for the first time will find themselves drawn into the amazing weave which will entice them, and engage self-sexual questioning that is quite capable of opening one's own sexual subconscious. And, just for a treat. . . it almost seems as if every frame of this film is an art-piece in and of itself.

Without being a masterpiece this is a surprisingly good film in its genre, and one of the first taking into account that it was made in 1980 and it may be considered one of the fist erotic thrillers. The story of an attempted suicide of a woman (Theresa Russell) and the following investigation where his boyfriend (Art Garfunkel) faces the suspicion of an obsessed detective (Harvey Keitel) is set in a Vienna filmed with taste and style and told in a non-chronological manner that builds the story in an a series of interleaved present and flashback scenes. The best parts of the movie are these where the actors are left to rather freely build the relationship of lust and mis-communication between Russell and Garfunkel, and the suspicion mind-game between Garfunkel and Keitel. Less convincing is the plot itself, it looks like after setting the story and putting the characters in motion the director and script writer did not really know how to end it at the level of interest they succeeded to build. Garfunkel itself in the middle of the story looks a little uncertain, this is by far his most important role on screen but his lack of confidence fits well a character who is supposed to look like he cannot make his mind in a relationship. Although this film came a little too early it set the rules and establish the ground for a niche genre that has developed a few years after it, and despite the aging of some gadgets and equipment and the intense smoking that looks now so outdated :-) by its characters it does not look too tired or rusty, quite the opposite. Actually if I am to compare it with Basic Instinct (certainly with the second one, but maybe also with the first) Bad Timing is a better movie.

Director Nicolas Roeg has managed to take a half hour story and extend it for 129 minutes. What you see in "Bad Timing" is a series of contests between two of the most neurotic lovers outside of "Damage" from 1992. The main characters are a professor of psychiatry, appropriately, and a young woman who demands that others allow her to live for the moment. Scene after scene we watch these two attempt to dominate each other. Their sexual couplings make the bed into an arena of emotional endurance. The loser is left crying or pleading and the winner, always unsatisfied, wants still more.

The film, rather than having a plot, is a process. We watch -- my excuse was to wait for a plot -- this sickness for over two hours and find no redemption for the characters nor for us. No reward exists at the end of the shabby rainbow.

As for mechanics, Art Garfunkle, who plays the professor, has the depth and spice of a soda cracker. He attempts to play a passionate playboy, but I can never quite get "The Sounds of Silence" out of my head. Funky and quirky Jeremy Irons, would have been a perfect choice for the part. The talented Harvey Keitel, here a sadly dysfunctional police detective, is wasted with lines dripping psycho-babble as he pleads with the professor during an interrogation. Theresa Russell, who plays the object of the professor's obsession, is given the only good lines in the film. Her role is so well-portrayed that her character occasionally engages our sympathy.

If you are in the mood for some pretentious nonsense, or want to give Art Garfunkel one more chance, check this one out. Otherwise, get neurotic on your own.

I saw this film when it was originally released and it still ranks as my all-time favorite. From the opening strains of Tom Waits' gritty "Invitation to the Blues" (which is cut off by the wail of an ambulance!) every aspect--music, scenery, the astonishing acting--melds together into a masterpiece.

Theresa Russell is simply a knockout as Milena, a woman who refuses to be "owned". She's beautiful, sexy, carefree, and absolutely infuriating to Art Garfunkel's psychologist Dr. Linden. His compulsion to control her leads to disaster, and Garfunkel's performance is absolutely astonishing. The expression on his face in the final scene is unforgettable. It haunts me still.

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.)

so when I saw this on NetFlix I figured it may be a decent film, suspense set in Vienna.

She looks lovely, just prior to minor fame from "Black Widow" (starring with Debra Winger and Terry O'Quinn) where she was excellent as a gold digger and murderess.

The sites are intriguing, she is a party girl who leaves a former older lover to date Art Garfunkel, psychiatrist. Yes, its dated in that Garfunkel is not exactly leading man material, even in the early 80's I do not think he was, but anyway.

Basically as Milenia, Russell is enjoying her travels, and merely wants to party and have fun, sensual escapades and no strings. Garfunkel however begins to have contempt for her as she will not commit to being only with him.

Some cinematography in Tangier is beautiful and sensual. The overall story doesn't work, but you may find it watchable if you are a fan of Russell. There is a twist at the end as well. 6/10

This is Roeg at his best. Incredible script, stellar camerawork, dark and convoluted plot. Exquisite exposition of the nature of obsession. I believe the rapid cuts between the emergency room and sexual passion were off putting for many reviewers, and they couldn't see Theresa Russell's magnificent performance in that scene for what it really was.

Roeg is never easy, but neither is Franz Kafka.

I will admit that Bad Timing is well directed by Nicolas Roeg, a master of visuals - from his cinematography of The Masque of the Red Death (1964) to the enchanting Walkabout (1970). The use of music is effective if not as good, I suspect, as it could have been . The film falls down in three areas: the script, the acting and the length. The script is repetetive, often incoherent and tends towards the insular and melodramatic. The theme of relationships is done to death: there is no hinterland, just a monotonous unpersuasive intensity. The acting is a mixture. Not enough is made of Harvey Keitel and Denholm Elliott's talents. The crucial part is handed to Art Garfunkel, who, while not awful, is barely adequate. What was Roeg thinking there? Theresa Russell, however, gives one of her finest performances as an unstable woman. Where the film finally fails is in the way it drags on and on, with no real point and certainly few memorable scenes. The viewer is battered into submission by the repetitive, droning unsavouryness of it all. Not by any stretch of the imagination an enjoyable film. Rating:- ** 1/2 (out of *****)

I've just returned after seeing this movie and it has messed your dude up. This was my life for the two years I spent with my Milena. The parallels are uncanny. I am kind of nerdy just like Garfunkel...same pathetic physique...but like Garfunkel I have a certain magnetism. Garfunkel's not exactly a wimp...there's some steel in his gaze. My Milena was just as magnetic and beautiful as Theresa Russell...really. My Milena also lived in a sordid, messy, sexy aerie with a big bed, overfull ashtrays, half-read books everywhere. The alcohol? Check. The infidelity? Check. The suicide attempts? Check. The much older other man? Check. The sleazy, disgusting party friends? Check. The late-night drunk calls that may or may not have been suicide attempts? Check. The intense sex that regularly turned into something twisted? Check. Just like Garfunkel I was hooked...just like Garfunkel I had a "together" life...my God, I even study psychoanalysis...and just like Garfunkel there was more than a hint of bad faith in the togetherness I opposed to my Milena's sloppiness. Like Garfunkel, the idea that Milena had other lovers made me crazy...like Theresa Russell, my Milena needed secrets...lies...she couldn't breathe without her lies and secrets.

The scene where she sets Garfunkel up with her fake suicide attempt only to loose the full force of her hysterical cruelty on him...check...down to the blows and the broken bottles...and it marked the moment our love died, even if things dribbled on for a while after that.

Anyway...you get the picture. You know a movie is good when it shows you things about YOUR OWN life that you hadn't noticed before. That's the secret of a great movie: you feel like it's talking to you and to you alone. I have a feeling I'm not the only person who walked out of the cinema feeling like he had just seen his own life on the screen. Almost everything is perfect. This film is even more disturbing than DON'T LOOK NOW. That is saying a lot. The one wrong note for me was Harvey Keitel. I liked the contrast of his healthy virility with Garfunkel's nerdiness...but Keitel got something wrong. Not sure what...it was certainly a tricky role, and he wasn't exactly bad, but something was wrong.

Nicolas Roeg's "Bad Timing" is bound to be one of the most shocking movies that you'll ever see. This story of a psychotherapist (Art Garfunkel) and his stormy relationship with a free-spirited woman (Theresa Russell) received an X rating upon its initial release. Roeg had previously featured shocking scenes in "Walkabout" and "Don't Look Now". What we have here isn't much more shocking, but it's definitely not for the prudish or fainthearted.

Nonetheless, I do recommend the movie. While it's not the most famous movie ever, I'd say that you should see it at least once (though be prepared to have your mind blown). The nonlinear narrative might confuse you, but keep paying attention.

Also starring Harvey Keitel and Denholm Elliott (Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones movies).

"Bad Timing" is a film you'll either love or hate. Many of the reviews give it high praise and have very high ratings...but many also were very ambivalent about it. Place me in that second group. This is because in spite of all the nudity and sexuality, it sure left me very, very bored.

The film begins with some doctors working on an overdose patient, Milena (Theresa Russell). Then, throughout the rest of the film, you see a series of flashbacks about her relationship with an American psychology professor, Alex (Art Garfunkel). To call their relationship dysfunctional is clearly an understatement and it seemed very odd to me that a psychology professor would have a relationship with such a disturbed woman. She shows many of the symptoms of a Borderline Personality--with an inability to deal with boredom, compulsive use of sex and intoxicants, an inability to truly love or trust another (often adoring him and then hating him with little warning) and a lot of other behaviors that ultimately result in Alex rightfully calling her "a crazy bitch". Some might enjoy all these histrionics...but after a while it all became incredibly dull...even with all the nudity. Some of this is the choice of music--music that often exacerbated the slow pace and depressing mood of the film. The only time it really got interesting was late in the movie when you learned more about Alex and his actions during her suicide attempt...that WAS a bit of a surprise! Sadly, it took way too long to get there...and by then I was pretty much finished with the film.

Overall, a mildly interesting portrait of some very sick people...her for her many, many self-destructive behaviors and him for putting up with it and his behaviors late in the film. I couldn't see any genius in this one...just a film that left me waiting and hoping it would all end very soon.

By the way, although the film is set in Vienna, no one seemed to be Austrian! Not only were Alex and Milena Americans but so was the detective investigating (Harvey Keitel)....and this casting really didn't make any sense. Nor did it make much sense that the Doctor really didn't speak German very well despite living in Austria!