In Jean-Jacques Annaud's flaccid soft-porn melodrama a young French girl is sexually awakened by a polite but torrid affair with a Chinese gentleman in colonial Southeast Asia. The film was adapted from the autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras, but is actually a dimwitted cousin to 'Last Tango In Paris', with all the pretensions but none of the power of Bertolucci's film (the anonymous characters are identified only as 'the girl', 'the Chinese man', and so forth). The eroticism so vital to the story is further undermined by a script that might have been improved by subtitles (but not by much), and fatally crippled by two leads with little chemistry and even less depth. There's nothing about the vague, passive schoolgirl played by Jean March to suggest she could ever write like Duras, so it's hard to connect the often exquisite voice-over narration (read by Jeanne Moreau) with the empty sentiments coming out her mouth. Desperate publicists tried to drum up prurient interest by circulating rumors that the sex was genuine, but it's a moot point: the love scenes are no more provocative than a gymnastics exhibition, minus the dexterity and grace.
