Diary of a Nymphomaniac (2008)

When you're a woman or a person like Val in this harsh judgemental world you better lookout for yourself and be vigilant about your own happiness. This story was spot on and very well represented by the actors here. Of course, some scenes might seem cliché but isn't life always consisting of some?

Valére is very close to her grandmother Marie Tasso (Geraldine Chaplin). She struggles to find love ever since losing her virginity at 15. She writes all of her sexual experiences in a diary. She falls for Jaime but when she tells him about her pregnancy, he becomes unstable and rejects her. She is short of money and takes a job as a high class prostitute.This is an art house erotic movie but I don't get a sense of tension. She's basically a single woman looking for love. Then she takes the prostitution job for the cash. The character is missing the desperate sexual needs that the title suggests. It needs to heighten the danger. It's artsy nudity without much tension.

This movie is already five years old, and even the title may have changed since it was billed as, when I viewed it recently, "Diary of a Nymphomaniac," which is in keeping with the Spanish title.Recommendations: 1. Try to view the movie with no preconceived notions - turn off, if you have them, whatever accepted double-standards regarding sexual behavior you may hold.2. As life is (we hope), a long and continuing process, so, too, is this story, but each segment serves to add to the motivation and character development of the dramatis personae.3. Allow the characters to be the human beings they are, warts and all.Do the above as you view this movie, and you, too, will appreciate it!

Valerie Tasso wrote the novel in which this film is based. It appears the movie, either was released only in Europe and some foreign markets, or it went directly into DVD. The diary of this woman was brought to the screen by Spanish director Christian Molina with a screenplay by Cuca Canals that is clumsy as well as awkward.Our sole interest in watching the movie was because of the presence of Leonardo Sbaraglia, a good actor from Argentina that is equally at ease in his native country as well as in Spain, where he has enjoyed a somewhat good career, but alas, let us hope he does not give his work in this terrible film as a reference. We watched the film in a cable channel while overseas.Valere, the woman at the center of the story makes no bones about her addiction to sex. In fact, she can wear out anyone that goes to bed with her. She makes the mistake of falling in love with the bipolar Jaime, a man that suffered from premature ejaculation, something she never thought would happen to her.When she decides to become a professional prostitute, she joins the house of Cristina, a madam with lesbian tendencies. Val suddenly realizes that even though she makes a lot of money doing what she loves best, she is at the mercy of the basest types that will stop at nothing with her because they feel they own her.The film wastes Mr. Sbaraglia in, perhaps, his worst performance. A horrible Geraldine Chaplin is seen as Valere's grandmother and a totally out of control Angela Molina, plays the madam. Belen Fabra bares it all without any problems.This is a film targeted for voyeurs that will consider this movie as a work of art, no doubt.