Brilliant and touching

Best movie ever!

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Regardless of others viewers' outrage, I thought this wasn't a bad movie - OK yes there are some graphic scenes, but not many of them. At worst the orgy scene probably didn't need to be as graphic as it was, but it still was important to the plot and did add authenticity to the theme being explored. "The Principles of Lust" is a story about Paul, a struggling writer who discovers a great gal and her son - the instant family. But a chance meeting with Billy has provided him with an avenue into an extreme, morally ambiguous world. For the writer in him (or simply for the fact he is a bored human) this indulgent world appeals to him, causing conflict in his "normal" boring life.A number of reasons why this film fails is given in other reviews, but I wonder if they have simply missed the point? To me, the movie explores two paths in life many of us can have access to, the more common (but boring and responsible) family life, or the "opposite" world of indulgence and chaos that has excitement at every turn. Paul must decide what he wants, what he values the most, before the chaos of one life consumes him whole and he loses any chance of getting back to "normality". I think the movie does a pretty good job exploring this theme through Paul's character. The movie also does a good job with Billy - rather than being the Devil as some have suggested, I think there is much more decency in the guy than is given credit for, even though he is more than a little lost and crazy.It would have been uncomfortable watching this in a movie theatre, but at home you can ponder the more graphic scenes without worrying what others think of you. If you allow this movie to be an exploration of a theme (visual literature) rather than the more mundane "visual entertainment", it becomes better than what some viewers have given it credit for.

Granted the Principles of Lust is patchy, but it's nothing like as bad as you would conclude from other user reviews. It pushes at the boundaries, challenges the viewer with explicit images you would never expect to see even in an 18-cert movie, but does also say a lot about relationships in the process. Paul and Juliette's instant attraction and failure to communicate effectively echoed much of the love-hate nature of real life relationships in my experience, right down to the closing shots where love and bitterness combine while Juliette's son looks on, uncertain. Secondly, Paul's uncertainty about himself and his status as a writer speaks volumes - and thereby he represents the vast majority of us. Ultimately, do we know what we really want? Maybe we are all drawn to the dark side but are afraid to admit it, even to ourselves? So from my perspective, bravo to Penny Woolcock for making this film, which inevitably will polarise its audience - but remember its nod to Fight Club, and the fact that it is adapted from a novel by Tim Cooke. It's hard to imagine a feistier adaptation than this.

The problem I had with the film was its approach. It was ultimately boring TV. It is as if it had no direction in it whatsoever. It's as if the camera is just picking up some kind of reality TV. The story starts in a typically pedestrian way, a struggling writer struggles to write, just like the writer of the story must have, with some sort of inner conflict, confusion etc, he meets a girl. Our tormented soul encounters a beautiful woman who helps the protagonist come to a sort of realization which ultimately opens the floodgates to more confusion and he keeps meeting his bad guy friend who holds him back from being with the girl. This method is guaranteed to put you to sleep in the first two minutes. Then there's the voice-over. If they can't tell a story properly, why bother. Don't add voice over, If they can tell a story for film, they should just go and work in Radio.Then there's the "introspective shot" which features the main character staring into space for a good minute. How pretentious can it get without moving anywhere? This has been done many times and also by wannabe film makers and students who don't know what else to do.Gratuitous shots which were there for no reason, ordinary choices and silly angles, OK, is that all? Nothing new or inspiring, it's total cheese. Better watch something else I think. Also as for the couple, do they really want us to believe that She would go out with him? That's totally implausible! The film irritated me as there is so much out there to watch and this was just a waste of time. This is a Slice of Life that is more uninteresting than real life.All the acting is wooden. But Marc Warren is Excellent in Hustle and he seems to shine in all he does so I wonder who's fault it is with this film? Marc Warren's character was interesting but he needed a bit more. Sienna is okay but just a bit too wooden. Newman is a fine actor but I didn't like his character and I think he was badly cast also, I just didn't care this time.The orgy scene is derisory. Enough said.When the film finished I was left with a feeling of 'So What?'. Why oh Why make boring films trash. Is it because someone thought they could and didn't stop to think if they should? This film is uncreative and badly directed, if there was any direction involved that is. The best thing was the music track at the end which I did like, but that didn't make up for the rubbish TV-trash film.

This is the most god awful piece of crap movie that i've ever seen. I saw it at the Sundance film festival and nearly walked out. Most if not all the audience felt the same way I did. Way too many orgy scenes, children fighting in cockfights and the main character has a revelation of what he wants like 5 minutes before the movie ends, oh how great for you, but why should we give a s***? The characters are boring and mediocre and you knew you were screwed by the opening credits with a man swimming naked, utterly useless, which was most of this film. It could have been cut down to a 3 minute film. If i had to sit through this movie ever again, i would need a vomit bag as this movie was nasty and it seriously did offend me.