Review of Guilty of Romance (2011) by Sandy R — 20 Dec 2011

A submissive, domesticated and sexually repressed housewife caters to the perfectionist needs of her arrogant husband. She is awakened and liberated sexually when she takes a job modelling in her spare time and begins to loose her grasp on reality and her own identity by thrusting herself into a world of depravity, prostitution and self destruction.

Beautifully filmed in garish colour schemes, it's more an explosion in style than content with a few literary references thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately it's a muddled, overblown mess.

I didn't really care for any of the characters. I found it's tedious, laboured and overly long scenes starting to grate on me as did the baroque and classical music which seemed to groan on continuously.

Guilty of Romance has several interesting half-baked ideas and wildly confused messages behind it, rather than being a more concise and developed whole. However It does at times make for an interesting look at a Japanese culture predominantly associated with sexuality and patriarchy.

The film would be a drag to watch were it not for the truly stellar acting of it's two female leads, Megumi Kagurazaka and Makoto Togashi who are both superb.