Macabre Tale of Seduction in Shaky ‘Intimate Relations’

In “Intimate Relations,” when Julie Walters’ Marjorie Beasley--a relentlessly proper housewife in small-town England in the 1950s--asserts that she “would rather be dead than brazen,” don’t believe her. Beneath her dowdy wardrobe and unbecoming too-tight curls is a woman so consumed with sexual frustration she swiftly seduces her startled new young lodger, Harold (Rupert Graves).

Alas, Marjorie’s 13-year-old daughter Joyce (Laura Sadler) is onto the affair right from the start.

Writer-director Philip Goodhew, inspired by an actual incident, goes for dark humor in a predicament that for all the outrageousness of its unraveling is not all that funny. The harder he tries to make Marjorie and Harold’s affair symbolic of 1950s repression and hypocrisy, the more their story seems to lack much point.

After all, lurid events with dire consequences lurking behind middle-class propriety has been a staple of true-life British crimes since the Victorian era, if not earlier. In any event, Goodhew needed to have brought more style and point of view to the telling of a story that rapidly becomes increasingly deranged and predictably grisly yet resolutely lacks passion and poignancy.

Beasley’s machinist husband, Stanley (Matthew Walker), who lost a leg in World War II, seems a nice guy, though drowning his wife’s rejection of him in drink.

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But Marjorie insists to Harold that in the boudoir he’s “beastly.” An innocent quickly in over his head, Harold has a troubled background presented with a needless vagueness that proves distracting.

In any event, the conflict between Marjorie’s craving for respectability and craving for sex has clearly unhinged her. Harold hasn’t a chance, and Joyce, who fancies Harold for herself, is in a position to blackmail both him and her mother. It’s a wonder that this situation takes a couple of years to explode.

Although Goodhew didn’t find a satisfactory style for “Intimate Relations,” he certainly has inspired some compelling portrayals from his actors across the board. Marjorie is a monster but, thanks to Walters, she emerges as believably human, and Harold remains essentially sympathetic in Graves’ portrayal of him.

Ironically, the actual story of the real-life “Harold,” who is now in his 70s, is infinitely more sinister and bizarre.

* MPAA rating: R, for a disturbing sexual relationship, a scene of related violence and some language. Times guidelines: The film is entirely too morbid and grisly and its themes too adult for children.

‘Intimate Relations’

Julie Walters: Marjorie Beasley

Rupert Graves: Harold

Matthew Walker: Stanley

Laura Sadler: Joyce

A Fox Searchlight Pictures release of a Handmade Films presentation for a Boxer Films and Paragon Entertainment Corp. production. Writer-director Philip Goodhew. Producers Angela Hart, Lisa Hope, Jon Slan. Executive producer Gareth Jones. Cinematographer Andres Garreton. Editor Pia Di Ciaula. Costumes John Hibbs. Music Lawrence Shragge. Production designer Caroline Greville-Morris. Art directors Annie Gregson, Moving Jim. Set decorator David Rosen. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes.

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