Diary of A Nymphomaniac
Free The Nipple
When I first heard about Diary of a Nymphomaniac, I figured it would be a fun, sexy film, something like The Other Woman. The film did not have to be profound, it was just supposed to be a light-hearted conversation about sex and in the beginning it seemed like that was all it was going to be. However, somewhere near the end of the first act, it started to become an interesting character study that also touched upon a few deeper issues and themes. By the end, I fell head over heels in love with the film. After some time of bullet-pointing my thoughts about this, I feel like this film deserves more recognition.
Now, as someone who feels like there is a double standard on women in what they can do in the bedroom compared to men, particularly in the fictional world of pornography, any movie that dares to tackle this issue generally gets my interest. A few movies have flirted with this theme, with the most recent and well known example being Easy A. I don’t mean this as a slight against Easy A as I found it to be enjoyable, but while Easy A only flirted with that subject, Diary of a Nymphomaniac tackled that subject head on. I personally found it admirable to see a film with the courage to do that, the courage to discuss such a taboo matter onscreen.
The film also shows the dangers of trying to give up who you are in order to fit societal expectations. Valerie, played by Belén Fabra, feels ashamed of her sexual appetite, and tries to suppress it by having children in order to fit society’s expectations of what women are supposed to be. She supposedly lost her virginity when she was 15, and ever since then, her sexual cravings have gone from strength to strength. The no-prisoners erotic drama dives straight into the convoluted world of nymphomania, to show the now sylphlike Valerie literally exhausting all of her sexual partners. Her unstoppable obsession with sex and fierce erotic curiosity, leading her to one bedroom liaison after another. Valerie suffers from two specific traumas that bring her journey down a more sinister path. In spite of her departed grandmother’s advice to remain true to oneself, the young woman soldiers on with her crisis of conscience, chancing upon a psycho-fiancé. All of which escort her to the morbid world of escorting, in the name of money and because sex work is real work (see my play on words here? Lmao). Thankfully, she manages to escape this depressing abyss relatively alright and announces her grand return to her old life, re-embracing nymphomania with a re-reinvigorated purpose.
Now I think that this film is one of the strongest arguments for individuality I’ve seen in a while, and its messages are well-understood by me. As it remains one of the mainstream hypocrisies today, if a man can score with any woman, he is seen as a player. However, if a woman pulls the same feat vice versa, she is considered slutty. Given the message, the director, Molina, and her group, none too subtly railing against this double standard, depicting Valerie’s old sex-bountiful lifestyle as relatively healthier than her failed attempt at normalcy. In my minimally political view, Diary of A Nymphomaniac could serve well with a liberal agenda, expressing Valerie’s journey as sort of an unshackling and a maintenance for sexual equality. The grandmother certainly has her priorities set straight, just waiting for Valerie herself to realize that her individuality is a way of life as well quand même.
If I could do it again, I would definitely fuck more.
The film also deals with the theme of owning women. This is where the film ventures into darker territory, where the attempts by males to control Valerie include such drastic and reprehensible actions as rape. While thankfully those scenes are not anywhere near as long or graphic as the infamous scene from Irréversible, but in a way they are even more impactful as the director uses closeups during such scenes to make the audience see Valerie’s pain in uncomfortable detail. Despite those themes, the film doesn’t portray all its male characters as the enemy, and as I said before there is a female character who isn’t portrayed in a totally favourable light either.
One thing I have noticed in most films is that anytime a woman is shown as a sexual character, their sexuality gets tied to some issue or trauma in their past. In essence, it is usually presented as a problem. This movie totally goes against that, which I happen to love. The voiceover in the film also ends up adding to it, rather than coming off as a distraction like in most movies.
The film is essentially equating sexual liberation and gender equality with free love — a dubious and chauvinistic assertion at best. It depicts encounter after encounter between Valerie and her male partners, but never stops to consider the possibility that the men in Valerie’s life are taking psychological, emotional, and sexual advantage of her — she’s in charge of everything, and by God, she’s loving it. A multidimensional drama would probe the ways that intimacy with multiple partners impacts Valerie on both psychological and emotional levels. But that never happens. We’re merely handed a female character who worships sex, questions these feelings, and returns to worshipping sex with increased confidence. We have no idea how it impacts her, or if it impacts her internally, shy of functioning as a vehicle for freedom and self-fulfillment threatened when someone attempts to possess Valerie’s body. Not only does this shallow and two-dimensional message threaten to drive the entire film into the territory of exploitation, it demonstrates extreme and laughable naïveté about the complexity of feminine sexuality.
The controversial ideas at its core seem very rooted in 1970’s sexual liberation — specifically the notion that many women, like Valerie, secretly crave sex without emotional connection, and the idea that social freedom would mean losing the shackles that bind these desires. The film purports to function as a liberation-themed feminist parable, but in truth, the material seems shaped into a machismo-fueled fantasy of how the ideal modern woman should think and act.
The only complaint I have with the movie is that the end scene felt too tame in my opinion. Now, just to be clear, I am not someone who needs graphic sexuality in a movie in order for me to like it, but for me I thought that the final scene felt underwhelming. There was an intriguing minor plot point in the movie, and its conclusion in the final scene felt disappointing to me. Imagine spending close to two hours explaining the lead character’s journey, only to end it abruptly with her curt declaration of re-nymphomania. Even with that in mind, I still enjoyed this movie. Now, as one would expect from the title, the movie has plenty of graphic sexuality, which I realize that not everyone is a fan of. For me, this film is one of the strongest arguments for allowing filmmakers to explore graphic sexuality on-screen and I highly encourage the next group of filmmakers to do so, professionally of course ;)
