The Principles of Lust (2002)

Director

• Penny Woolcock

Starring

• Alec Newman
• Marc Warren
• Sienna Guillory
• Lara Clifton
• Alexander Popplewell

Last On

01:30-03:40 Mon 28th Jun 2021 130m
Film4

Synopsis

Another British dud, this supposedly examines male lifestyle choices but fails to strike any believable note whatsoever. Writer/director Penny Woolcock's grimy social melodrama veers between the ludicrous and obvious with a spectacularly exploitative dreariness. What should jobless drifter Alec Newman do? Stay as househusband to working mum Sienna Guillory and her son, who adore him? Or join the uninhibited Marc Warren on the road to excess with pub strippers, high-stakes gambling, amphetamine addiction, juvenile bare-knuckle boxing and group sex? It's an absurdly black-and-white decision that's posed in this downmarket Fight Club meets Intimacy affair (although that comparison maligns those two far better movies). Woolcock's botch-job says nothing relevant about masculinity under threat, but everything about her desperate attempt to be controversial, by indulging in such dull shock tactics as hardcore orgy footage and brutal adolescent sparring. The fine cast deserved so much better than this macho claptrap.