Joanna Arnow’s second feature, 'The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed' is a masterful symphony of pervasive embarrassment, wrapped up in the love lives of the main character, Ann. It's an erotic film that swings between the awkwardness of office life and explicit kink scenes, painted with strokes of Arnow’s own experience and tinged with aspects of self-imposed humiliation.
The plot unwraps through a sequence of carefully orchestrated and tragically comedic flashes from Ann's life, starting from an uncomfortably intimate scene, trailing through her nine-year-long complex relationship with Allen (played by Scott Cohen) and culminating in the dissections of embarrassing, real-life scenarios. The film’s dialogues, expertly stylized yet strikingly accurate, give an authentic representation of BDSM scenes, unrivaled in cinema.
Arnow, in an inventive display of candor, performs her own sex scenes in the film, adding another layer of distress and discovery. Audiences are invited into the raw portrayals of pain, pleasure, and power dynamics, evoking a disconcerting blend of voyeurism and empathy.
While the film’s title captures the essence of Ann's suspended state of existence, the editing reflects the varied rhythms of life, oscillating amidst humor and humiliation. Uncomfortable scenes of quiet inertia are punctuated with moments of levity, like when Ann claims to be busy before the scene cuts to her idly watching the tide with her parents.
Where the film truly shines is in its transition from devastating discomfort to a glimmer of optimism. The progression is so subtle that the emergence of hope, represented by a blossoming park scene, strikes viscerally against the backdrop of the film’s otherwise neutral palette. Ann, despite her self-centered nature and passive demeanor, offers a glimpse of hope - that good things may also drift into the lives of the rest of us.
