Main Cast: Mark Rylance, Kerry Fox, Timothy Spall, Alistair Galbraith
Release Year: 2001
Country: FR
Run Time: 119 minutes
Plot
One man's sexual obsessions and emotional weaknesses are laid bare in this controversial drama. Jay (Mark Rylance) is a cold, emotionally distant man who abandoned his wife and children several years ago andnow works in a nightclub. Jay enters into an affair with a married woman, an amateur actress named Claire (Kerry Fox), in which their emotional needs barely enter the picture; they meet once a week and have sex, talking as little as possible and parting ways once they're done. One week, Jay follows Claire after their weekly encounter and sees her meeting her husband Andy (Timothy Spall), a cheerful and good-natured cab driver. Jay becomes curious about Andy and strikes up an acquaintance with him; as they become friendly, Jay begins sharing with Andy the details of his affair with a married woman, without mentioning his lover's name. Claire has already begun moving away from her affair with Jay, and when she discovers that he's been meeting with her husband and sharing information about their relationship, she becomes understandably furious. Intimacy was the first English-language film for French director Patrice Chereau; the film received its North American premiere at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Jay (Rylance) is a bartender who abandoned his family, because his wife lost interest in him and their relationship.
Now living alone in a decrepit house, he has casual weekly sex with an anonymous woman (Fox), whose name he doesn't know. At first, their relationship is purely physical, but he eventually falls in love with her.
Wanting to know more about her, Jay follows her across the streets of London to the grey suburbs where she lives. He then follows her to a theatre pub where she is working as an actress in the evenings. Jay learns that her name is Claire, and has a husband (Timothy Spall) and a son. Subsequently, he breaks up the relationship, as he thinks of his own sons, whom he loves and misses. They meet for a final time, and have sex with an intimacy that has been missing during the illicit sex sessions of their previous encounters.
