Film

Henry & June (1990)

Director: Philip Kaufman

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Kaufman's account of the triangular affair between Henry Miller (Ward), his wife June (Thurman) and Anais Nin (Medeiros) in '30s Paris is certainly good to look at, edited like a dream, and about an hour too long. Intelligently scripted, particularly good on the pain in relationships, it doesn't shed much light on the literary commerce between the writers. Bohemian society here sometimes resembles the setting for a Gene Kelly number, and the much-vaunted explicitness seems to have strayed in from a Zalman King production. Both Miller and Nin choose June as their Muse, draining away at her until she flees to preserve her sanity, but the actual disclosure that provokes the break - in bed with Nin, she learns that Nin and Miller have been a number - seems uncharacteristically illiberal. Neither Thurman nor Medeiros do much with their roles, but Ward has a fine old time screwing with his hat on and hammering at the Remington.

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