Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
The Mad Monkey (1990)
Director: Fernando Trueba
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Relying more on atmosphere and serpentine plot twists than on button-pushing shock effects, this psychological thriller builds inexorably to a disturbing climax. Goldblum plays an American scriptwriter whose marital difficulties are exacerbated when he gets involved in a European movie project financed by a Paris-based producer (Ceccaldi). The precocious young English director (Fletcher) has only the flimsiest of outlines, a brief quotation from one of Goldblum's favourite books, Peter Pan. Nevertheless, after the writer's initially reluctant agent (Richardson) cuts him a good deal, he starts work with the director on an abstract, almost avant-garde script. Surrounding the project is a compelling web of sexual intrigue, at the centre of which is the director's androgynous 16-year-old sister (Walker), an adolescent femme fatale who catalyses all the participants' selfish desires. As the plot coils ever tighter, handled with smooth assurance by Trueba, sexual fantasy and hallucinatory dream sequences give way to a frighteningly complex psychological reality.Author: NF
Cast & crew
Director: Fernando Trueba
Producer: Andrés Vicente Gómez
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Miranda Richardson, Anémone, Dexter Fletcher, Daniel Ceccaldi, Liza Walker, Arielle Dombasle full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 108 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now