In fact it's a bit of a soap opera. Take away all the sex and you're left with some boring office politics you've seen dozens of times before.
The story has 2 girls (Nathalie and Sandrine) get fired from their jobs at a tawdry Paris strip club. They move in together and strike up some kind of weird, half-lesbian friendship. Sandrine has never had an honest orgasm and Nathalie teaches her how to. She also teaches her to lose her inhibitions and masturbate in public. Wow, this may have been shocking back in the 80s with Nine and Half Weeks and even lesser drivel like Wild Orchid but now, in the 21st century it's just plain boring. If the film thought it could use this frank portrayal of sexuality in its favor then it is very much mistaken.
In fact, the most interesting part of the film is when Nathalie and Sandrine both get jobs in the same office and use their sexiness to climb the ladder. This bit has also been done before in Neil Labute's In The Company of Men, but not as good. It's here that the best characters are featured but towards the end of the second act the film goes off in another tangent with the evil boss of the company turning out to be a crazed sex-maniac with delusions of godhood.
Again, sexuality is used as a way of shock or arousing us, but it just fails. There's so many other films out there that try the same thing and if you want to succeed at it then you either have to be really erotic or just plain pornographic (yup, two different things). Choses Secretes is neither. And the women need to seriously think about shaving George W. if you know what I mean. I know European women like to be au naturel but DAMN!
Overall, Choses Secretes is neither good or bad. It's simply middle of the road. For a film that tries to sell itself on loads of sex it's somewhat ironic that the best bits are in the scenes where people are just talking.
The story has 2 girls (Nathalie and Sandrine) get fired from their jobs at a tawdry Paris strip club. They move in together and strike up some kind of weird, half-lesbian friendship. Sandrine has never had an honest orgasm and Nathalie teaches her how to. She also teaches her to lose her inhibitions and masturbate in public. Wow, this may have been shocking back in the 80s with Nine and Half Weeks and even lesser drivel like Wild Orchid but now, in the 21st century it's just plain boring. If the film thought it could use this frank portrayal of sexuality in its favor then it is very much mistaken.
In fact, the most interesting part of the film is when Nathalie and Sandrine both get jobs in the same office and use their sexiness to climb the ladder. This bit has also been done before in Neil Labute's In The Company of Men, but not as good. It's here that the best characters are featured but towards the end of the second act the film goes off in another tangent with the evil boss of the company turning out to be a crazed sex-maniac with delusions of godhood.
Again, sexuality is used as a way of shock or arousing us, but it just fails. There's so many other films out there that try the same thing and if you want to succeed at it then you either have to be really erotic or just plain pornographic (yup, two different things). Choses Secretes is neither. And the women need to seriously think about shaving George W. if you know what I mean. I know European women like to be au naturel but DAMN!
Overall, Choses Secretes is neither good or bad. It's simply middle of the road. For a film that tries to sell itself on loads of sex it's somewhat ironic that the best bits are in the scenes where people are just talking.