Reflections on the myth of intimacy - poignant look at married relationships in repai Perhaps if they only have stayed as 'strangers' - not knowing more than what they had: merely just this meeting on Wednesdays for the brief exchange of sexually charged energy being spent. They are two lonely people coming together for the hour to forget the rest of the world and just have a good f---. Is it good? It doesn't matter. It's letting out energy, of any unwanting karma, somehow to get lost or let go during the 'intimate' exchange. Is it intimate? Not really. The physical act can be termed as intimate, but are they? They don't really care. She appears at the door. He goes down the stairs and opens the door. She comes up the stairs. They're in the room. Hardly any exchange in words. They get to it. They lost in it. They're spent. Yes. It's NFE: mature audiences for sure. There are repeated scenes when they are explicitly bare, and the camera holds no restraint in showing us what and how they're doing it, baring down on the body contours, the handwork, the mouthwork, and the sighs, grunts, releases of energy we candidly see and hear. According to Wilhelm Reich, "The Function of the Orgasm" they have accomplished. (Dusan Makavejev's 1971 "W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism"). So one might think the film "Intimacy" is more on the 'pornographic' vein. Not at all. There were no money or transaction exchanged. It's two consenting adults, willing and able, and no questions asked. It's really not 'intimate' at that level. One might say it's like French director Frédéric Fonteyne's "An Affair of Love" 1999 ("Une liaison pornographique" with Nathalie Baye and Sergi López), but here we are fed more details about the two principals' background and family. One can be physically at ease and intimate when you're both detached. When you know nothing more than meets the eye - you can fantasize however you want the other to be, no personal cares or expectations, most of all, judgment, selfishness or jealousy do not come into play. Stay comfortable strangers and let not truth or trust get in the way. Is not knowing bliss? The feeling of possession - one's jealousy quotient - how Jay (Mark Rylance's character) is unable to accept the surprised fact that SHE has a happy family to return to with husband and son who love her, while he has nothing of the sort. He's miserably divorced for the past six years, still struggling with memories of his two sons and wife. His so-called friend Victor doesn't help - he actually leans on Jay more than Jay needs to. Jay is muddled all right. He reacts in a 'vindictive' heartless, unkind way. Having chatted and met her husband and son, he desperately feels more in need of HER love exchange. He wants to grab onto what little he has as he's feeling he'll lose her. Envious, Jay is. Pathetic, too. Kerry Fox is equally in depth in her performance as Rylance. She doesn't have many dialogs at first. Her character also has a friend, which Marianne Faithfull portrays. Timothy Spall is the husband sensitively delivered. (Reminds me of PBS series "Reckless" 1997-98 - Michael Kitchen's portrayal of the unbearable, jealous husband was hard to erase.) Is not life/love give and take, readjusting one's expectation levels as time goes by or as needs arise? "Lantana" 2001, the popular Australian mystery drama offers different aspects and insights of four married couples - murder or no murder.