Bitter Moon

Roman Polanski directed this drama, romance and thriller from a screenplay he wrote with Gérard Brach and John Brownjohn, adapting Pascal Bruckner's novel. It was his twelfth film as director, following Frantic and preceding Death and the Maiden. Peter Coyote plays Oscar, an American writer confined to a wheelchair, and Emmanuelle Seigner is Mimi, his French wife. Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas appear as Nigel and Fiona, a British couple whose marriage has gone flat and who take a sea voyage hoping to repair it. On board they meet Oscar and Mimi, and Nigel becomes drawn to Mimi. Oscar, aware of this, recounts the story of his own obsessive relationship with her, from a chance meeting on a Paris bus onward, and takes an interest in involving the younger couple in his designs. Victor Banerjee and Sophie Patel also appear.

The film was a modest production, made for about five million dollars across British, American and French companies. Its worldwide takings of roughly two million dollars fell short of that cost, and it drew a mixed response from critics, who rated it 6.6 out of 10 across 36 reviews. General audiences have been warmer: on IMDb it holds 7.2 from around 63,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.1 from roughly 880. The gap suggests a film that critics received more coolly than viewers, whose smaller but more favourable numbers point to a durable following.

Run time is 139 minutes.