Intimacy

Intimacy centres on Jay, a former musician who has drifted away from his family and now works behind the bar of a London pub. Every Wednesday afternoon, a woman named Claire arrives at his home, and the two have sex without exchanging more than a few words. Neither asks the other about their life outside those hours, and the arrangement continues on the same terms week after week. When Claire fails to appear at the usual time, Jay begins to wonder how little he actually knows her. After she returns, he follows her through the city and discovers the circumstances she has kept hidden, a decision that upends the balance they had maintained.

Patrice Chéreau directed the film, his third feature after Queen Margot in 1994 and Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train in 1998, and wrote the screenplay with Anne-Louise Trividic. Mark Rylance plays Jay and Kerry Fox plays Claire, with Susannah Harker as Jay's wife Susan, Timothy Spall as Claire's husband Andy, and Alastair Galbraith and Philippe Calvario among a credited cast of twenty. The production was a European co-production involving Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and France.

Released in 2001, the film earned roughly 3 million dollars worldwide, a limited return for a drama of this scale. On IMDb it holds 6 out of 10 from around 14,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.2 out of 10 from 563 votes. A critics' rating of 6.2 out of 10 from 71 reviews places it close to the audience scores.