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| Directed by Gillies MacKinnon; Starring Kate Winslet, Said Taghmaoui, Bella Riza, Carrie Mullan, Pierre Clementi, Abigail Cruttenden, Ahmed Boulane, and Sira Stampe |
I must say that I was not fully sure of what I was walking into when I made way into Hideous Kinky. From the title it sounded like yet another soft-core erotic film, much like Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love; from the ad campaign it looked like yet another film about a person finding themselves in the desert like Walkabout; and from the capsule reviews it seemed like another love story of a scorned woman. To my surprise, Hideous Kinky is really none of the above. It has one far from erotic sex scene and a small love affair, but neither serve as a major part of the film (nor a jumping point for the lead character to find herself).
The film begins with Julia (Winslett) and her two daughters Bea (Riza) and Lucy (Mullan) who are English expatriates in Marrakech, Morocco because of a want to get away from her underappreciative famous poet ex-husband. In fact right at the beginning we see his worth as the three receive a Christmas package from him. The only catch is that the gifts are for his other family: a new wife and her son. While in Morocco, Julia falls for a native named Bilal (Taghmaoui). Through problems of lacking money and Bilal’s past, they depart each other after taking a long journey into the desert and Julia finds refuge with a Frenchman (Clementi) and an over-zealous Englishwoman (Cruttenden). After the Englishwoman turns Bea against Julia, Julia and Lucy head back to Marrakech, only to find more problems down the road.
Winslett is highly able making a performance as layered and interesting as her performance in Heavenly Creatures, but I found Taghmaoui a little flat. The screenplay works but tends to be a little repetitive. What really makes the film work is its art direction, cinematography, and direction. I loved the look of the film, highly reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 Marrakech set remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much. It may be a little over long but from a visual sense, Hideous Kinky works.
