Full Body Massage

At the height of the pay cable softcore renaissance, Showtime went out and hired the director of one of the most memorable sex scenes in cinema history to craft a highbrow version of their usual smut.  The result was Full Body Massage (1995), a Nicolas Roeg joint that found the auteur responsible for Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie’s celebrated coital encounter in Don’t Look Now staging a cerebral mind-fuck between Mimi Rogers and Bryan Brown.  It’s one of the more inexplicable career moves for all involved…but not without its merits. 

Nina (Mimi Rogers) is a successful art dealer who likes to keep her life on schedule.  But things get out of whack when Fitch (Bryan Brown) shows up for her weekly massage rather than her usual boy toy.  A world-traveler with a philosophical bent, Fitch pushes Nina’s buttons while he kneads her muscles, resulting in lengthy conversations about marriage, professions and the meaning of life.

 

In an interview Rogers described the film as My Dinner with Andre with a massage table.  And that’s a pretty accurate assessment of the overly verbose script by Dan Gurskis, which covers just about every aspect of both character’s lives but manages to say next to nothing.  Roeg keeps us waiting for some big revelation, but, besides long, leisurely shots of Roger’s body (she looks terrific by the way at almost 40) covered in various oils, the film is curiously unengaging.

 

Roeg was never exactly a consistent filmmaker to begin with; his early work relied as much on the editing as the visuals to create a unique storytelling style.  And he attempts that here from time to time, jumping into flashbacks populated by second-tier actors who only distract from our two leads.  Rogers deserves a round of applause, not just for showing skin, but for performing so unselfconsciously.  While Bryan Brown could almost be playing a relative of his wise bartender from Cocktail after spending a few months at a Buddhist retreat.

 

Still, Full Body Massage is somehow fascinating the way it holds your attention.  It does so despite the pretentious dialogue and cut-rate production values.  And if the only explanation is a vicarious sense of horny relaxation watching two recognizable actors vainly attempting to elevate a genre that didn’t need their help to begin with…then so be it!

 

Premiering on Blu-ray as part of the classics line from Unearthed Films, the 2K scan of this uncut version looks very nice and includes a slightly shorter, slightly cropped TV version for comparison’s sake.  There’s also a stills gallery and trailer collection by way of extras.

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