First Hugh Grant, and now... Art Garfunkel? Surely there's a mistake? Nope. Directed by the great Nicholas Roeg and famously advertised as a "a sick film made by sick people for sick people" by the very production company who distributed it, Bad Timing continues in his tradition of super weird, disorienting, and hyper-atmospheric motion pictures that manage to grip and disturb in equal measure. Centered on a plot concerning two Americans caught in a love affair and living in Vienna in the 1970s (played by Garfunkel and Theresa Russell), the movie was deemed to be incredibly controversial upon first release for its graphic depictions of sex, and was branded with an "X" rating. Uh-oh: that's never good. Like all of Roeg's work, though, it retains a strange, almost otherworldly power - and though the film eventually makes the jump from erotic to fully disturbing towards the end of the film, it does nothing to diminish its power as both an erotic movie and an underseen classic.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
