At times it peaked my interest but it often became tiresome....and requires some suspension of disbelief....the life long friendship of the two men being one. Perhaps it would have been possible to disguise having a relationship with one's best friend's girlfriend....with the girlfriend rebuffing sex with her ostensible boyfriend while having sex with the friend...but I didn't buy it. Staying friends as their lives evolve in disparate ways doesn't read true. Later on I had trouble believing that a woman is desperate to get her unworthy boyfriend to marry her. Not a woman who was as seemingly successful and as stunningly beautiful as Ann-Margaret's character. The women are treated poorly in this film. The men are as another review says, not really likable or invite sympathy. Least of all the Jack Nicholoson character. My assumption is that it was close to the actor in characterization. I assumed before seeing it that it was entirely set in the seventies so surprised that it attempted to follow lives from post WWII to the seventies. As a reflection of changing awareness of women, of the relationships between men and women it doesn't strike me as representative of the seventies.....the final scene with Rita Moreno ....well who is this character she plays? We never learn. She plays Indian classical music as her choice of music. Is that a clue? Is she supposed to be of Indian background? Is that some kind of in joke of the use of this music not for mind blowing experience of awareness but rather something quite carnal? And unpleasant at that. The film ends on a sour note for its characters. That in itself is okay if the film convincingly took us there. I don't believe it does. It's a dated period piece....not a bad film....not great either.
Review of Carnal Knowledge
