Film Review: Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 & Vol. 2
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The best way to describe Nyphomaniac is that it’s a screening experience you aren’t likely to have watching another film. Sure there will be movies that are as thought provoking or movies you’ll like better, but I doubt there will be anything as unique as the new Lars von Trier flick. Now this isn’t to say this movie is the best thing to arrive in theaters/VOD this year. I decided to wait till after I screened both halves before even attempting to think of a review for the film. In a way, seeing both parts within a relatively short time frame, helped better understand the highs and lows of Nymphomaniac’s twisted logic, shocking scenes, and less than stellar ending.
The movie is split in two halves, Volume 1 and Volume 2. In Volume 1, we first meet Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), our titular nymphomaniac, beaten and lying in an alley. It is there that she is discovered by Seligman (Stellan Skarsgaard) who takes her back to his home to help her recover. It is there that she begins the tale of her life, informing him and the audience about being “two years old when i discovered my cunt” and winding us through what led her to become a nymophomaniac. We see Joe grow up from a naive girl who is interested in sex to a girl who seduces men on a train for a bag of chocolates. Her wild ways become a bit tempered when she begins to have feelings for the guy who took her virginity. Volume 2 then tackles the story of a grown up Joe and how her addiction to sex has really ruined her life and led her to the place where Seligman found her.
It must be said that I find reviewing these two films, which are actually one experience, really difficult. If you viewed these movies as two separate entities you might have seen this as one movie that had a lackluster sequel. Viewing them as two films, means that this 4 hour film, much like our main character, starts off fast and then peters out. Either way you view the film, its apparent that while there are many scintillating scenes to keep you watching throughout the film that the movie really grinds to a halt near the end.
Which is a shame because for most of the movie, I was pretty much on board with what was going on, with Von Trier finding a great balance between titilation and serious introspection. You can definitely see this on display in one earth shockingly great sequence between Jo, a man she’s been sleeping with, the man’s wife, phenomenally played by Uma Thurman, and kids. This sequence manages to be so incredibly difficult to sit through but is so dramatically compelling that you rock with it. Von Trier also manages to make the most explicit material visually interesting and relevant. Seeing an older Jo longingly look at the penises of the the two African men she’s trying to have a threesome with while the men argue about something does as much to convey the themes of the movie as the actual sexual acts themselves. Surprisingly, given von Trier’s nature, the movie is quite funny and you’ll be hard pressed to not laugh when you see spoons after watching a particular sequence in Vol 2. For the most part, von Trier finds interesting situations and character beats to keep the movie rolling.
However, the man can’t hold out on his overindulgences and they end up taking over the film. Vol 2 is such a slog to sit through because he stops focusing on the action of being a nymphomaniac and more of going off into extreme melodrama. Well the Lars version of melodrama and shocks. The movies fail to really nail down the relationship between Jo and her father, which gets significant time but never felt real to me. There’s also the matter of the nymphomania that in Vol 2 gets some significant moments (such as Jo leaving her child home alone to get some pleasure) but it felt disjointed with Shia Labeouf (and his horrendous accent) playing the older version of Jerome, only to have the movie cast an older version later. The last twenty minutes of Vol 2 are terrible and completely undermine what he was going for, feeling less organic and more of an “I’m Lars von Trier and I always have a shocking/ridiculously sad end so I have to do it again.” Also, you can feel von Trier trying to be the smartest man in the room with his sex-real world analogies.
Of the actors, Stacy Martin as the younger Joe and Uma Thurman were easily the best. Stacey Martin gets much of the sexually explicit and emotionally charged material and she takes to both with an incredible amount of relish. But it’s Uma Thurman who steals both films with her one scene in Vol 1 managing to be both heartbroken and vengeful at the same time.
If you all are thinking of watching this movie, I’d suggest watching both vol 1 and 2 within a short time frame because the movie will be more complete that way. Just don’t expect that the movie will keep your interest till the very end.
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