Bad Timing

Star Review

It wasn't her first significant film role, but 22 year-old Theresa Russell was effectively discovered in Bad Timing. It captured her precocious, world-weary sensuality, not unlike To Have and Have Not did with Lauren Bacall. As Milena, a US army brat living in Vienna, Russell's voice is deep from smoke-filled encounters with older men; she is teasingly relaxed in foreign settings and bad company, and her eyes betray an erotic mischief that is far outside her (and everyone else's) control. This certainly affects Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel), an American lecturer who becomes obsessed with her during a brief affair. The fling turns ugly and Linden begins to fixate on her 'promiscuous' past; it eats away at him like a cancer. Soon, he is trying to destroy her with the academic coldness he reserves for his professional exterior.
This is just a surface reading of Bad Timing, but it's a way into its maze of dark emotions and brutal sexual politics. It is a disturbing and characteristically confounding experience – and Nic Roeg's last great work for the cinema.

Julian Upton on 16th April 2007

View all 74 of Julian Upton’s reviews

[ Show Film Description ]

Film Description

Art Garfunkel plays a moody psychiatrist whose obsession with a fun-loving young girl (Theresa Russell) leads to tragedy and suspicions of foul play. With characteristic acuity and the desire to push his actors to extremes, Roeg unravels the strands trapping two people in love and flashbacks show Garfunkel and Russell dragging each other to breakdown in Vienna. Distributors Rank branded it 'a sick film made by sick people for sick people' and the film only received a brief theatrical release.

[ Show Star Review ]

DVD Extras

• Stills gallery
• Press Notes PDF
• Press Book PDF
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Teaser Trailer
• Deleted Scenes
• Commemorative Booklet.

Film Details

Cast

Denholm Elliott, Harvey Keitel, Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell

Technical Details