The film was recommended to me on Tubi so I had no idea what it was about going into it. First of all, it is an Art House film with little dialog, and if either of those things turn you off you can skip this review and the movie.
The movie opens with Charlotte renting an apartment and paying quite a large sum for it in cash. Next we learn that Charlotte is a very successful doctor, researcher & teacher with a great a family, including a great looking husband! Next we see Charlotte walking up and down the hall of her research facility looking at patients and eventually choosing one to take back to her apartment, which we now know is obviously her love den, and has sex with the patient. This theme repeats itself as we see Charlotte take many patients back to her bachelorette pad. Where the name of the movie seems to come into play here is that she is randomly selecting these men, hence the name the Brownian Movement, technically The Brownian Motion. The men Charlotte selects are all the antithesis of her very handsome husband with one being bald, one very hairy, one obese and a very old man. But are they truly random?
Eventually Charlotte is caught cheating and violating medical ethics by having sex with her patients and is ordered to undergo a court mandated psych eval/marriage counseling with her husband. In the final counseling session, Charlotte is asked why she did this by her husband and the psychiatrist and just when we think we are going to learn why? Charlotte says " I think it is better If I don't say why? But if you were paying attention, which I was, Charlotte appears to have a tactile compulsion, in that she is satiated by different textures and touch sensations, those seem to be what drives her behavior. We first see this in the opening scene in the apartment when Charlotte, in a short silk robe, spreads a blanket out on the bed and sits on it. She appears very frustrated while sitting on the blanket and then pulls her robe up so her bare bottom is now on the blanket and sense of calm comes over her. She lays back on the blanket and gently rubs the back of her hand across the blanket, which we see has a very distinct texture to it.
The men Charlotte selected are all offer that same tactile sensation she seeks. We see her stroking and touching the body hair of the very hirsute man. Later she plays with the belly of the obese man. During that same encounter we see Charlotte lying nude on carpet gently stroking carpet fibers when the obese man lies on top of Charlotte, not in a sexual way, but rather for Charlotte to experience the feeling of his weight upon her. The saggy skin of the old man again offers another unique tactile sensation for her.
The compulsion is not just related to men, we see Charlotte visiting buildings under construction and lying on the concrete structures rubbing the concrete with her hands with the same calm she experienced on the blanket.
Charlotte is eventually disbarred and her and her husband move to another country and magically have two more children, that was a bit of a disconnect, but we are to believe her and her husband have reconciled. While Charlotte appears to have overcome her compulsion with men, she is still distanced from her husband and he begins to believe she is cheating on him, again. He follows her one day expecting to find her with another man, but instead finds her in a building under construction sitting against the concrete wall seemingly in rapture. The husband actually feels jealous of the joy she finds with inanimate objects, but ultimately deals with it.
The movie was a very interesting/deep character study of a person with a unique affliction, but cutting down on all the scenes with little dialog could have made the film shorter and ultimately better.
The movie opens with Charlotte renting an apartment and paying quite a large sum for it in cash. Next we learn that Charlotte is a very successful doctor, researcher & teacher with a great a family, including a great looking husband! Next we see Charlotte walking up and down the hall of her research facility looking at patients and eventually choosing one to take back to her apartment, which we now know is obviously her love den, and has sex with the patient. This theme repeats itself as we see Charlotte take many patients back to her bachelorette pad. Where the name of the movie seems to come into play here is that she is randomly selecting these men, hence the name the Brownian Movement, technically The Brownian Motion. The men Charlotte selects are all the antithesis of her very handsome husband with one being bald, one very hairy, one obese and a very old man. But are they truly random?
Eventually Charlotte is caught cheating and violating medical ethics by having sex with her patients and is ordered to undergo a court mandated psych eval/marriage counseling with her husband. In the final counseling session, Charlotte is asked why she did this by her husband and the psychiatrist and just when we think we are going to learn why? Charlotte says " I think it is better If I don't say why? But if you were paying attention, which I was, Charlotte appears to have a tactile compulsion, in that she is satiated by different textures and touch sensations, those seem to be what drives her behavior. We first see this in the opening scene in the apartment when Charlotte, in a short silk robe, spreads a blanket out on the bed and sits on it. She appears very frustrated while sitting on the blanket and then pulls her robe up so her bare bottom is now on the blanket and sense of calm comes over her. She lays back on the blanket and gently rubs the back of her hand across the blanket, which we see has a very distinct texture to it.
The men Charlotte selected are all offer that same tactile sensation she seeks. We see her stroking and touching the body hair of the very hirsute man. Later she plays with the belly of the obese man. During that same encounter we see Charlotte lying nude on carpet gently stroking carpet fibers when the obese man lies on top of Charlotte, not in a sexual way, but rather for Charlotte to experience the feeling of his weight upon her. The saggy skin of the old man again offers another unique tactile sensation for her.
The compulsion is not just related to men, we see Charlotte visiting buildings under construction and lying on the concrete structures rubbing the concrete with her hands with the same calm she experienced on the blanket.
Charlotte is eventually disbarred and her and her husband move to another country and magically have two more children, that was a bit of a disconnect, but we are to believe her and her husband have reconciled. While Charlotte appears to have overcome her compulsion with men, she is still distanced from her husband and he begins to believe she is cheating on him, again. He follows her one day expecting to find her with another man, but instead finds her in a building under construction sitting against the concrete wall seemingly in rapture. The husband actually feels jealous of the joy she finds with inanimate objects, but ultimately deals with it.
The movie was a very interesting/deep character study of a person with a unique affliction, but cutting down on all the scenes with little dialog could have made the film shorter and ultimately better.