Compulsion (2018)

Two questions. First, has there ever been an actually good erotic thriller? Like, one that’s not just fun but also objectively good? Second question. At what point did all movies decide that the best way to depict kinky sex is by everyone wearing fancy masks?

Compulsion is about Sadie, a writer of erotic memoirs. While in Italy promoting her book, she runs into Alex, an old flame around whom much of her book is based. Sexually unsatisfied with her current boyfriend Thierry, Sadie agrees to come with Alex to a villa that promises to host general kinky, sexy times. Sadie also brings along Francesca, a dancer she meets. Once at the villa, the movie descends into largely pointless scenes of vaguely trippy sexy stuff. Sadie and the other guests frequently imbibe hallucinogenic drugs. As such, many of the scenes are revealed to be at least partially hallucinations or dreams. Near the end of the film, Theirry shows up. However, Thierry is there to be used as a sacrifice because that’s what kinky sex is, I guess. Sadie is not sure how she feels about this.

Compulsion is mostly heterosexual. It’s largely Sadie choosing between her two male lovers. More of the actual sex scenes are between Sadie and Francesca, but the character emphasis is about the love triangle between Sadie, Thierry and Alex. Francesca is really just kind of there.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a case where the main character’s bisexuality being commonplace and unremarked upon feels radical. It just feels like Sadie is a conduit for the desires of the male director. Sadie is interested in beautiful women because the director is interested in beautiful women. Beyond the aggressive amount of objectification this movie does to its female actors and the lengthy sex scenes between Sadie and Francesca, the fact that Francesca is so unimportant to the narrative proves how little the director regards women, female sexuality or the possibility or queer sexuality. Francesca is there because the movie needed another woman. She has no character or purpose beyond rolling around on a bed with Sadie.

It’s not as if poor character work is limited to Francesca though. Compulsion clearly doesn’t care about story. None of these characters have any motivation. They just do things because that’s how the movie can get from one sexy scene to the next. There’s not even any explanation of this whole sex cult thing Sadie finds herself at the centre of. Why do they sacrifice people? How do they get away with it? How did this all originate? The movie doesn’t care. Compulsion just wants to show you rich people being decadent and maybe a little murder-y even if there’s no reason for that to happen nor for its protagonist to be there.

The visuals are better than the story because that’s clearly where the focus is for this movie. The location scout is the MVP of the movie as the villa they shoot at is beautiful. The location does a lot of the heavy lifting for the visuals. There are some well-choreographed and shot scenes but they’d feel more at home in a music video. They usually don’t connect to anything or move the story along, they just look cool. There’s also not enough of them in this 84 minute movie.

Compulsion has nothing going for it. The focus of this movie is being sexy so character work and story are almost non-existent. But it’s also not even that sexy or extreme. Compulsion’s idea of kinkiness is two women having sex, someone being choked, people wearing masks, and ritualistic murder. Three out of four of those are fairly tame and the last one is just crime. There is nothing to Compulsion, neither story nor titillation nor good representation of WLW. There’s no reason to see it.

Overall rating: 3.9/10

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