I Watched It So You Don’t Have To: Bad Timing (1980)
As with all of the films in our I Watched It… series, we strongly encourage you to watch these movies if you’re interested. We’re just here to prepare you for what you’re getting yourself into. Spoilers ahead.
What do we ever owe one another when it comes to love. Do we owe them our true selves? Do we instead owe them our best selves? Do we owe them our full hearts and minds? Our bodies? Our undivided attention? Our secret desires? Our forgiveness?
The irony of director Nicolas Roeg titling his film ‘Bad Timing’ is that it throws the audience off its scent. In the first half hour of this non-linear tale of two lovers, you’d presume a mismatched couple was all that was being portrayed. Instead, the film pushes far beyond the anxiety of unrequited love, and dives deep into the darkly personal. A situation more common, insidious and terrifying than let down expectations – Bad Timing (1980) delves deep into obsessive, controlling love and ends with a violent and unhinged conclusion.
The film follows the relationship of Milena Flaherty (Theresa Russell) and Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel) as told through fragmented flash forwards and flashbacks. We open on Milena being rushed to the hospital, having overdosed in an attempt to commit suicide. As doctors perform a graphic tracheotomy and various medical procedures, such as vacuuming her stomach and swabbing for a rape kit, Alex waits in the hospital waiting to see if she’ll survive. A psychoanalyst by trade, he seemingly maintains a cool composure throughout the ordeal. Because of the nature of her state, Inspector Netusil (Harvey Keitel) pulls Alex aside and tries to get the full story out of him; who he is, who she is, who they are to each other, how they met, and how it all came to this.
We’re introduced to these characters through flashbacks of various highs and lows. We see how Milena initiates a whirlwind affair with the skeptical Alex – always quick with a laugh, a new adventure and another bottle of booze. Alex allows her to lead, smitten by her bold advances and ability to live in the moment. When he realizes he’s fallen for her, he tries to pin her down, asking her to marry him and move back to the United Sates. But Milena keeps him at a loving arm’s length – she’s clear with him that she wants him, but she always wants her freedom. We start to realize that Milena’s lust for life is a front, a desperate attempt at escapism from her depressing childhood, large mood swings and overall lack of direction. For her, to settle down is to wallow.
Alex starts to become jealous of her lifestyle and his inability to solely control Milena’s affection and attention. When it’s revealed that she’s actually, currently, married to a much older man – who begrudgingly allows her to go and come as she pleases – Alex’s jealously takes a turn towards cruelty. He second guesses all of her interactions with other men, picks constant fights with what she says, and berates her lifestyle to the point that she starts to self medicate heavily with booze and drugs. But instead of leaving this now toxic situation he created, Alex insists on staying in it until he gets what he wants. In one scene, he visits a hopeful Milena at her apartment, only to turn and walk out when she tells him she’s not in the mood for sex. His reaction causes her to chase desperately after him and eventually breakdown, insisting he takes her in the hallway if that’s what will make him stay with her. He complies vigoursly, and then, post coitus, leaves her sobbing on the staircase.
As Alex and Milena both start to spiral out of control, the film climaxes with their lowest lows. For Milena, it manifests as a mental breakdown as she battles with trying to please Alex’s desires and be true to her own. She sets her apartment up like a funeral, paints her face in white and red makeup, and manically proclaims the old Milena has dead and this is the birth of the New Milena – reborn as the doting, submissive woman Alex has always wanted her to be. Alex angrily rejects her and storms out of her apartment, feeling mocked by her half-sarcastic and half-desperate pleas for him to accept her. It ends with Milena screaming bloody murder, throwing glass bottles and vases off her balcony trying to hit him as he walks away.
Alex’s low is only revealed at the persistent pressing of Inspector Netusil, who’s now developed a grim theory between what Alex has told him and the medical evidence collected. We then witness his breakdown, starting as he arrives at Milena’s apartment after she called him to tell him she overdosed. We watch as Alex drags her heavily intoxicated body to the bed, and monologues at her about how he’s decided that her death is the only way this relationship can end. He waits for over an hour as she drifts in and out of consciousness, and then decides that he owes himself one last hurrah before finally calling the ambulance at what he hopes is a too-late time. In a chilling scene, he then rips off her clothing and then rapes her – notable for how it’s shot, using a low angle that focuses largely on Alex’s puny, pale body and his psychopathic expressions, instead of just leering at Milena’s unconscious, naked body the way so many older films do.
The film ends with Alex never having to truly confess because the doctors wind up saving her. The final shot depicts a flash forward in New York City, as Alex glimpses Milena entering a hotel as he’s about to leave in a cab. He tries to call out to her, she turns, but his car pulls away.
Bad Timing is an excellent film but a rough watch. Not only does it have us witness a brutally disturbing rape scene, but its final shot is somehow manages to be even more chilling – a portrait of sheer, egotistical denial. What a gut punch.
It’s honestly a little unclear if the film really understands how disturbing its own main character is. Sure, there was plenty of controversy upon the film’s release (it was rated X upon release and disowned by its UK distributor), but you know that couldn’t have just been about the rape scene. Let’s be real, this is a decade when almost every film found an excuse to rip off a woman’s clothing for a cheap laugh or quick high-five style ogle. So it leaves me to believe the thing that people found so chilling was how close to the uncomfortable truth this film gets when it comes to portraying the realities of misogyny. We all know these Alex-style pompous men who believe they’re owed sex, or owed a woman’s body simply because they’ve shown interest. All of whom feel wounded and resentful when things don’t go their way, and then lash out in violence instead of simply accepting reality and moving on with their lives.
In interviews Roeg refers to this film as being about “obsessive love,” but it goes much further – it’s certainly ‘obsession’ but it’s nowhere near ‘love,’ just deep, dark manipulation and turmoil. Theresa Russell is extremely memorable as Milena, so vibrant, fierce and wounded, you fully understand why Alex gets so tangled trying to cage and corner her every time she tells him she doesn’t want to be only ‘his.’ Art Garfunkel fits the bill pretty damn well as a bitter, egotistical prick – again, we all know this type of bitter loser – but the film’s a lot less clear why Milena would feel so obsessed with him. There’s some suggestion about his stability or his perceived intelligence, but with its fragmented storytelling Garfunkel only really shines when his character sours into pure cruelty.
Nick Roeg knows just how dark this gets – even if the script tries to questionably compare a violent mental breakdown to murderous physical assault in intensity. There’s an interesting exploration here about where and when to draw the line between lustful obsession and violent obsession. Roeg choosing the artwork of Gustav Klimt as a repeated visual theme also works to juxtapose the intellectual, idealized love with the dark, gritty reality of what’s happening down on the ground. That said, the director’s intentions aren’t necessarily the end all of film interpretation. You could easily argue that there’s a level of indulgence in Bad Timing that betrays a dark mirror fantasy more than it tells any specific moral lesson. The filmmakers’ intentions also don’t account for the intelligence of the audience – we still have problems with people deciphering between stark portrayal and enthusiastic recommendation. It’s easy to see how audiences could be offended if they thought this film was in some way idealizing these attitudes.
As controversial films go, Bad Timing is one of the more thoughtful, chilling and sadly recognizably stories of everyday horror out there. A horror story of how twisted warm feelings can become when mixed with insecurity and chauvinist behavior.
