Hideous Kinky

Starring:Kate Winslet, SaÃ¯d Taghmaoui, Bella Riza, Carrie Mullan, Pierre ClÃ©menti, Abigail Cruttenden, Ahmed Boulane, Sira Stampe, Amidou, Michelle Fairley, Kevin McKidd, Peter Youngblood Hills, Mohcine Barmouni, Annouar Zrika, Mohamed Cherkaoui, Abderrahim Bergache, Khaldi Cherif, Ahmed Madha, FrÃ©dÃ©rique Zepter, Salah-Dine Fenjirou
Director: Gillies MacKinnon
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Hideous Kinky journeys back to the early 1970s to Marrakesh, that hippy mecca for everyone from Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix to Gillies MacKinnon, the director of this movie. Here you'll find one nice but confused middle-class young woman escaping the daily grind of a drab London with her two young daughters in tow. Whereas Esther Freud's book was told from the younger girl's perspective, the film-script places Julia centre-stage as she searches for what she describes wistfully as "the annihilation of the ego."

Product Description

A young, clue-free Italian finds and eludes trouble on numerous occasions as he journeys to and through America in director Paolo Virzi's 2001 comedy My Name Is Tanino. Naive optimist Tanino (Corrado Fortuna) gets romantically involved with an American tourist named Sally (Rachel McAdams), who happens to visit his hometown one fateful summer. After Sally's vacation ends, Tanino decides to follow her to the U.S. not realizing that Sally's interest in him ended when her vacation ended. Upon arriving in America, Tanino learns the truth about Sally while being mistaken by Sally's father for his wife's lover...

Average customer rating:

QUIRKY AND ENGAGING FILM...

Hideous Kinky [Region 2]
Starring: Kate Winslet , Saïd Taghmaoui , Bella Riza , Carrie Mullan , and Pierre Clémenti
Director: Gillies MacKinnon
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Holy Smoke!
Heavenly Creatures

ASIN: B00004R82O

Customer Reviews:

QUIRKY AND ENGAGING FILM..........2006-04-27

This is a wonderful film with stellar performances by the entire cast. It is about a young woman's quest for the meaning of life. Taking place in the early 1970s, it is very reminiscent of an era now passed, an era when "flower power" was the rule of the day.

Here, Kate Winslet plays Julia, a twenty five year old young mother of two children, nine year old Bea, stunningly acted by Bella Riza, and her younger sister, Lucy, charmingly played by Carrie Mullen. They abandon their structured, staid life in London, when Julia decides to leave their father to go to Marrakech in Morocco, then the capitol of the disaffected, in search of spiritual enlightenment.

Taking her children, Julia goes on an adventure, an adventure to which Lucy, the younger of her two daughters, takes to almost immediately. Nine year old Bea, on the other hand, begins to yearn for a more "normal", structured life. Julia, however, will have none of it. Living in a Moroccan slum with her girls, she romanticizes their existence.

Julia becomes involved with Bilal, a street performer of sorts, who looks out for them. Wonderfully acted by Said Taghemaoui, Bilal charms Julia and her daughters. He cannot, however, support them, and they cannot support themselves. This becomes clear as they begin a rag tag journey into the Moroccan country side.

Sooner, rather than later, reality sets in. The adventure wears thin on Bea who becomes estranged from her mother. The harsh reality of every day life confronts Julia, who ultimately realizes that traipsing around Morocco just puts her young daughters at risk. Unfortuntely, this realization does not occur to her until she almost loses Bea to illness. It is then that Bilal steps up to home plate and gives them the means to return. They leave Marrakech to begin their journey home, taking with them enough memories to last a lifetime.

This is a wonderful movie with exceptional cinematography. A virtual travelogue of Moroccan life, it is a visual feast that is sure to delight those who have a hankering for faraway, exotic places and a thirst for adventure.

Average customer rating:

QUIRKY AND ENGAGING FILM...

Hideous Kinky [Region 2]
Starring: Kate Winslet , Saïd Taghmaoui , Bella Riza , Carrie Mullan , and Pierre Clémenti
Director: Gillies MacKinnon
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Holy Smoke!
Heavenly Creatures

ASIN: B00004RYVH

Customer Reviews:

QUIRKY AND ENGAGING FILM..........2006-04-27

Average customer rating:

"The Truth Is A Man Standing Upright In The Sun" ~ Duties And Passing Pleasures On The Road To Annihilation
Mothers on a journey often abandon their children
Hideously Good
A movie seemingly in search of itself
A woman finds herself in Morocco trying to find herself

Hideous Kinky
Starring: Kate Winslet , Saïd Taghmaoui , Bella Riza , Carrie Mullan , and Pierre Clémenti
Director: Gillies MacKinnon
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Period Piece | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Holy Smoke!
Jude
Hideous Kinky: A Novel
Iris (2001)
Heavenly Creatures

ASIN: B00000K3U6
Release Date: 1999-10-26

Amazon.com

Hideous Kinky journeys back to the early 1970s to Marrakesh, that hippy mecca for everyone from Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix to Gillies MacKinnon, the director of this movie. Here you'll find one nice but confused middle-class young woman escaping the daily grind of a drab London with her two young daughters in tow. Whereas Esther Freud's book was told from the younger girl's perspective, the film-script places Julia centre-stage as she searches for what she describes wistfully as "the annihilation of the ego."

Though fresh from her Titanic experience, Kate Winslet is no drippy hippy, bringing a refreshing feistiness to her role and looking fetching swathed in diaphanous layers. As her two daughters, Bella Riza (Bea, the wide-eyed younger one) and Carrie Mullan (Lucy, the sensible one) are brilliant discoveries--unselfconscious, charmingly quirky, and enjoying a camaraderie that belies their difference in characters. Completing the family unit is Julia's lover, the endearingly unreliable Bilal (a fiery performance from Saïd Taghmaoui). When the money runs out, their adventures begin and the resilience and practicality of the girls is contrasted throughout with the dreaminess of their mother, her sense of duty vying with her quest for self-discovery. Visually, it's a veritable feast as we're pitched from the color and cacophony of the marketplace to the dusty harshness of the mountains. And that elusive title--which is never explained in the film--is in fact a phrase coined by the girls as a term of approbation. --Harriet Smith

Customer Reviews:

"The Truth Is A Man Standing Upright In The Sun" ~ Duties And Passing Pleasures On The Road To Annihilation.......2007-02-27

Synopsis: Set in the year 1972 in Marrakech, Morocco we find twenty-five year old British hippie Julia (Kate Winslet) wandering about Marrakech with her two young daughters. Tired of the sameness of everyday life she has left the father of her children behind in London in search of "something different" for the children and herself in North Africa.

Julia and the girls wander about the exotic landscape interacting with the locals, other occidental fellow seekers and an occasional British ex-patriot or two. She becomes involved in a romantic interlude with a street performer named Bilal (Said Taqhmaoui) but her real quest is not to find another man, but to discover the Truth (yes, with a capital T). She hopes what she is looking for will be revealed to her by the resident leader of a group of Sufi's, a sect of Islamic mystics flourishing in the area. The only question is whether or not she's ready for the answer?

Critique: `Hideous Kinky' released in '99 is an exquisite film that insightfully captures the innate human desire to find some form of spiritual underpinning in life to counterbalance a mundane world consisting of nothing more than duties and passing pleasures. The film takes the viewer on a slow, meandering, hypnotic journey through the cities and countryside of Morocco. The goal of the storyline is at times unclear, but then so is any true spiritual journey. And like any real quest for truth the answers one receives are generally not answers at all, only more questions. It's this ambiguity of thought and motion that is the real beauty and message of this mesmerizing film. The amazing scenery coupled with a soundtrack consisting of late `60's, early `70's pop tunes interspersed between African rhythms and Sufi trance music make for a magical mystery tour to another world.

Recommendation: This film belongs in your permanent DVD collection.

Mothers on a journey often abandon their children.......2007-01-14

Kate Winslet stars as a single English mother of two who takes them to Morocco with her on her spiritual journey. They have many adventures, which begin as a fun time, but they run out of money and the girls begin to miss home. I loved the movie because I related so much with Kate Winslet's character until she turned into a self-obsessed mother - one of my greatest fears.

Hideously Good.......2006-10-11

Kate Winslet is a very good actress, there is no doubt about it. She is one of few actors who gives a very honest account of the character she is playing being extremely focused to her work. She does this movie a lot of justice. The story moves slow at times, but fast enough to keep you captivated. Kate is very convincing as a young single British mother on a spiritual journey and quest of self discovery in Morocco. The scenery is also spectacular. Buy this movie along with Holy Smoke if you can. It works out cheaper, it is certainly not worth the money being asked of it on its own.

A movie seemingly in search of itself.......2005-12-27

Single mom Julia tries to make a living in Morocco with hopes of fulfilling her spiritual quest with her two young daughters Lucy and Bea. The script rambles a bit; Julia's relationship with her daughters' father is glossed over and reduced to his inability to pay child support on time, and a romance with street performer Bilal isn't deeply explored.Bilal apparently has an estranged wife, but although she's briefly depicted, little is said about their relationship except that Bilal is neglectful of her.

The film does do a good job of including pop culture with music by America and Jefferson Starship, but too much of the characters' relationship isn't fully explored. Worth a look though for the beauty and talent of Kate Winslet and the culture of Morocco.

A woman finds herself in Morocco trying to find herself.......2004-09-26

"Hideous Kinky" is based on an autobiographical novel by Esther Freud (Sigmund's great-granddaughter, not that this means anything in terms of the story) and stars Kate Winslet as Julia, a young British woman who has traveled to Marrakech in 1972 with her two young daughters in tow, 8-year old Bea (Bella Riza) and 6-year old Lucy (Carrie Mullan). Julia seems to be living in this exotic world because is a truth-seeker, but she is also running away from her life in London, where she caught her "husband" (i.e., the man who fathered her children), cheating on her. He is supposed to be sending them checks and care passages from home, but what usually happens is that the checks never arrive or are less than expected while the packages are intended for his "other" family.

This film holds us at a distance because the perspective is not so much that of the mother as it is of the daughters. Conveniently one of them is game for being dragged around a foreign land while the other becomes rebellious. The world does seemed turned upside down when a young girl tells her hippie mother: "I don't need another adventure, Mom. I need to go to school. I need to learn things." Julia wants to understand Sufi philosophy and find inner peace. Her daughters would like to taste rice pudding again (every time the older one has something to say the younger one announces the fact).

It is not so much that the movie condemns Julia as it is that it fails to understand her, largely because she clearly does not understand herself. Throughout the film director Gillies MacKinnon uses familiar songs by the likes of Jefferson Airplane and Richie Havens to substitute for action and to provide the film with the appropriate vibe. If these songs are being played loudly then what Julia is doing in a strange land with her children must be a good thing because these are good songs.

Yet we come to the conclusion that this what matters here in the end is not going to be a quest for enlightenment but simply the effort by Julia to get out of Morocco alive with both of her girls. However the crucial factor in this appears to be neither Julia nor the Europeans with whom she has some connections in Morocco, but Bilal (Said Taghamoui), a street performer who may be running from the policy and who becomes not only Julia's lover but a father figure of sorts to the girls. He may be a rogue, but he is a charming one and we have reason to believe that he cares about these women, even if he is ultimately powerless to help them.

In the end "Hideous Kinky" is more about people and a place more than anything else. The performances, including Winslet's first after the mega-success of "Titanic," are certainly solid enough. But memorable moments in this film are more likely to be when a familiar song, such as America's "Horse With No Name," pops up while Julia and the girls are hitchhiking across the desert. We get a sense of the culture of Morocco, but no real understanding of it, any more than Julia really understands herself any better in the end. But what we see is captivating enough that like Julia's children, we go along for the adventure.

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