Bliss (1997)

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Craig Sheffer (Nightbreed) seeks the help of a controversial sex therapist (Terence Stamp) to help him bring his wife (Twin Peaks‘ Sheryl Lee) to orgasm. Bliss is like The Karate Kid for a little while, with Stamp playing the Mr. Miyagi role, teaching Sheffer about the ways of sex, bliss, and ecstasy. But once orgasm is achieved, we learn that the cause of Lee’s frigidity is a disturbing repressed memory that sends all three characters back to square one. I tend to enjoy movies about emotionally damaged people trying desperately to make connections (The Rules of Attraction is another good one), and that’s what we have here. It might sound like Bliss treats women as wilderness in need of taming, but if you stick with the movie, you’ll find that both ‘the male gaze’ and male privilege are indicted by writer/director Lance Young, and that Stamp’s sex ed training is more about helping Sheffer’s character than Lee’s. With Spalding Gray and Casey Siemaszko.

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