Max Mon Amour Review

Held up for UK release for over four years, this heavily-touted tale of Charlotte Rampling humping a chimpanzee turns out to be no more than a feature-length tease. And not a very good one at that. Oshima fumbles around with the basic plot involving British diplomat Higgins' bizarre reaction to the news that his wife (Rampling) is getting it on with a primate — being a true patriot he prefers that idea to her going horizontal with Johnny Frenchman — and the whole thing lumbers along like a dead-weight farce as poor Higgins tries des­perately to find out what exactly goes on in bed between Rampling and the man-in-a-monkey-suit. It all tries for a satirical tone somewhere between Bunuel and Noel Coward and it all falls tragically flat on its face.