The ever-present Cold War background, which is seldom explicitly mentioned, aroused more paranoid associations at the time than it does now. Paranoia and second-guessing are the rule in Alex’s world. Alex appears coldly rational-Milena bitingly advises him to try to love her instead of trying to understand her-but his advanced training doesn’t inoculate him from human frailty he’s as subject to jealousy as the next man, and when he falls from his logical perch, he falls hard, into a churning id.

As the relationship is slowly revealed in flashbacks, we see the power balance between the two shift back and forth, as both parties become mired in an increasingly destructive relationship, in different ways. Alex Linden with the hard-drinking, free-loving Milena. The setup is classic amour fou, pairing successful academic Dr. Opposed dualities appear everywhere: male vs. He feints that he’s about to give us a bittersweet meditation on a failed love affair, but instead probes ever deeper into a psychology of paranoia and obsession, using a subtly dislocating style to keep us off guard. Had this review been written earlier in this site’s existence, this movie’s layers of mystery might have convinced us to shortlist it, but now we have weirder candidates waiting in the wings.ĬOMMENTS: Nicolas Roeg shows excellent, if somewhat deceptive, timing with Bad Timing. WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Extremely subtle weirdness + adequate Nic Roeg representation on the List already + shrinking available space (only 85 slots left at the time of this writing) make it a bad time for Bad Timing to come along. PLOT: A woman is rushed to the emergency room flashbacks explain the troubled relationship between a psychology professor and a free-spirited younger woman that brought them to this pass.

FEATURING: Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell, Harvey Keitel

Bad timing 1980 full movie