The Principles of Lust

Dir: Penny Woolcock

2003

*

2003’s The Principles of Lust looks a bit like an amateur dramatics group has taken Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, misinterpreted it and then made it into a film. It is based on the unpublished novel 'The Zero-Sum Game' by Tim Cooke and the fact that it is unpublished should have been the first warning sign to the production company. The late 90s and early 00s were awash with cheaply made over-ambitious British films such as this and it severely damaged the British Film Industry. I liked the idea behind the story – the ago old tale of a man becoming enervated by an encounter with a manifestation of his dark side before ultimately realising the error of his ways – but I liked the aforementioned Fight Club better. The film begins with a rather well filmed scene of a man swimming underwater naked. We then meet Paul (Alec Newman) who is a struggling writer who we see rushing to meet a friend. His friend is an artist and Paul meets her at an exhibition where we discover that the film we just saw is her art piece. Paul was her model. An attractive blonde lady seems to be admiring the piece/Paul’s naked figure so Paul goes over to talk to her. Her name is Juliette (Sienna Guillory) and within seconds Paul is declaring his lust for her an suggesting they might marry. This part of the script sounds a bit like Hugh Grant’s last line of dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral but read out by drunkard deviant. Still, it works and the pair are soon besotted with each other. This is where my initial worries were realised. The pair are all over each other and director Penny Woolcock sticks the actors in the middle of a high street and films the disgusted reactions of elderly passers by as they dry-hump and lick each other’s faces. It is a huge departure from the artistic opening scene. Days later, Paul is hit by another car while driving somewhere. The driver apologies and admits he has no insurance but offers to buy Paul a drink. The guy is Billy (Marc Warren), a rather grubby deviant who Paul somehow feels attracted to. The pair enter a pub that has dancing naked girls, the sort of place that been wiped out well before 2003 and that didn’t look like that anyway. The film gets quite graphic at this point and nothing is left to the viewers imagination. The rest of the film is then a blur of Paul and Billy getting up to no good and Paul and Juliette either kissing, making love or arguing – sometimes all three at once. It is revealed that Juliette has a son who Paul finds himself fathering and that, thanks to Billy’s influence, Paul develops a taste for child-only bare knuckle fighting. I’ve been to Sheffield, it is not how it is depicted here. The pubs and clubs are not how they are or were and absolutely none of what happens rings true. The film is topped off with is the most sad looking orgy one could ever imagine, although I’m pretty sure the sex was for real. The real sadness here is that the actors gave everything they had because they thought they were starring in a piece of art. It is hypersexual, hyperviolent, hyperbollocks. The well-trained classical actors look ridiculous in their portrayals of working class youngsters as they try to act all Trainspotting and convincing at the same time. Director Penny Woolcock was born in Argentina and raised in Montevideo and Buenos Aires. In 1967, she founded a radical theatre group and was briefly arrested. Her parents wanted to send her to Europe for safety and after spending time in Spain she moved to England in 1970 as a single mother. One wonders what was so radical about her theatre group that lead to an arrest. The shock element is sad and distasteful rather than shocking, indeed, the only thing shocking here is the lack of direction and dreadful script. The film didn’t know how to start, let alone how and when to end. I don’t know who this film is for as I can’t think of anyone who it could relate to. I understand films can often take place in a no-mans land, the location, time and situation not always being important to the overall story but there is nothing dreamlike or open to interpretation about The Principles of Lust, it is simply misguided, poorly written and over complicated while forget the importance of continuity, character development and basic entertainment values. It is awful.