Review: Scenes of a Sexual Nature

UK Release: 3rd November 2006

Ewan McGregor and Sophie Okonedo are part of an ensemble cast in this multi-stranded tale of Londoners indulging in relationship angst (and a bit of something else) on Hampstead Heath. Sexually-charged interactions add to the heat of a summer afternoon, but first-time director Ed Blum spares us the graphic details and instead focuses on the characters’ emotional dysfunctions.

Scenes work best when aiming for laughs, like Tom Hardy striving to be a cockney Casanova or Gina McKee in stilted conversation with Hugh Bonneville during a blind date. At other times, Blum shoots for a melancholy tone but given that he’s juggling over ten minor intrigues, there isn’t enough time to really feel for any of the characters.

That said, the performances are glowing all round and enhanced by lots of casually amusing dialogue. Overall there’s a free and easy ambience about the film that proves quite seductive.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate 15
Running time 91mins

Review by Stella Papamichael

News: Sophie Okonedo

Since her turn in 2004’s Oscar-winning Hotel Rwanda,up and coming British acretress Okoned’s career has been going from strength to strength. After this week’s Scenes of a Sexual Nature, she will barely be off our screens for the next year, with four films and two TV projects coming up – including in the BBC’s revival of the popular children’s storytelling show Jackanory from January.

On the big screen, she’ll be cropping up alongside siblings John and Joan Cusack in The Martian Child before acting as the love interest for two very different stars – rapper Mos Def in the 1970s period piece Stringbean and Marcus, and Matthew Broderick in inter-racial dating drama Wonderful World – before taking on the action thriller genre alongside Kevin Bacon (somewhat implausibly stepping into the shoes of original star Vin Diesel) in Black Water Transit.

News: Adrian Lester

The classically-trained actor and member of the Council of the Royal Acadamy of Dramatic Art (though now probably best known for the BBC’s con-artist drama Hustle) has got a number of minor roles in potentially big movies coming up to follow his supporting turn in this week’s Scenes of a Sexual Nature. Nost notable are likely to be social work drama Case 39, alongside Renée Zellweger, and the sure to be massive Spider-Man 3, where he will play a research scientist trying to find a cure for one of the film’s big baddies. Will there be a returning role for him if the stupidly successful franchise makes it to a fourth movie? Too early to say…

News: Ewan McGregor

The actor who has managed to combine heroin chic with Jedi heroics continues to churn out an insane number of very varied films, with five last year alone, and another seven in the pipeline after this week’s Scenes of a Sexual Nature. Due out at the start of January, McGregor will next be starring alongside Renée Zellweger as she takes the lead in the Beatrix Potter biopic Miss Potter, yet another potential Oscar contender (there’s always a glut of them at this time of year).

Other potentially interesting projects include the next – as yet untitled – film from Woody Allen, alongside Colin Farrell, Tom Wilkinson and (somewhat bizarrely) former Eastenders actress Tamzin Outhwaite, and The Tourist, in which McGregor will play a man implicated in a woman’s disappearance after being introduced to a sex club by X-Men‘s Hugh Jackman.

Most promising, however, is likely to be I, Lucifer, based on the novel by Glen Duncan in which a man has his body taken over for a month by Satan himself after a deal between the Evil One and God. McGregor will play the unfortunate vessel for the Devil, with new Bond Daniel Craig playing the fallen angel who posesses him. Could be entertaining – and is bound to cause a bit of religious controversy when it finally makes it to our screens.