Nicholas Roeg was never the most accessible director, but if you like your thematic complexity padded with gauze, placed in a box, wrapped in barbed wire, then thrown at your head, he's your man. Genre fans may know him best as the director of The Man Who Fell to Earth. Bad Timing has the best of Earth, but avoids Earth's most glaring pitfall, which is to get too elusive in the last thirty minutes. Bad Timing traffics in territory just as universal as Earth, but more personal. Relationships are as much about power as they are about sexual compatibility. Power can shift in ways that seem imperceptible, even to those initiating the shift, but the result can be disproportionate. Love can become obsession, and obsession can turn to hate or confusion or even stronger love.

It's no coincidence that Roeg sets his film in Vienna, the home of the mysterious Third Man. It's here we meet Dr. Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel), a psychoanalyst who lectures at the local university and also does some work for the government. As such, Alex likes things quantifiable, with no remainder, which means Milena Flaherty (Theresa Russell) is the worst person he could possibly know. A very young and very sexy army brat, Milena meets Alex at a party and they begin having an affair, a more accurate term than to say they begin dating. Dating implies a formal, if tacit, declaration of courting and getting to know one another. An affair is more guttural and sexual. They're at opposite poles, these two, so their happiness depends on which direction their respective sexual magnets are facing. She's freewheeling, he's bookish. Each completes the missing half of the other.

The end of their relationship is actually the beginning of the movie. Milena is in the hospital, having overdosed. Her life is on the line, and Inspector Netusil (Harvey Keitel) wants Alex to account for his whereabouts while Milena was busy killing herself. The story of their affair is then told in flashback. And it works, because the more we learn about Alex and Milena's time together, the more we also wonder what Alex was doing during those crucial minutes.

Performances here are great, especially Russell, whose work is flamboyant, naked (literally and figuratively) and makes the other performances make sense. Garfunkel was a controversial choice, but his everyman, if not nerdy, look gives the film a universal quality. He wears his thoughts on the outside, making him more accessible than some method actor.

In the end, Alex loved Milena's spirit, but then why would he try to contain it? Her attraction to him is more nebulous, but ultimately she fell for a man using his professional abilities to probe her, inside and out. Maybe she liked the attention too much.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

According to Criterion, the movie "is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Director Nicholas Roeg supervised this new high-definition transfer, which was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35mm interpositive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System. To maintain optimal image quality through the compression process, the picture on this dual-layer DVD-9 was encoded at the highest possible bit rate."

That's what they say. Here's what I say: this is a very smooth and satisfying picture. Colors range from muted hospital hallways to more colorful outdoor cafes. The colors are never that striking, but they show no fade or tearing. Blacks are smooth and moderately dense, although shadow detail is merely okay. In nighttime interiors, some of the darker areas of the frame look crushed. Detail manages to be above average and fleshtones are a nice and realistic light brown. The picture has moments of softness and I did see some light edge halos, pumping up the sharpness in some exteriors.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

According to Criterion, "the soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from the 3-track magnetic master, and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on 5.1 channel sound system, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound."

That's what they say. Here's what I say: the mono mix is adequate. Dialogue is understandable, but there is a certain hollowness to some scenes and thinness to others. Scenes recorded in sound reflective rooms don't have enough of the echo processed out for my taste, but others may not mind. The music (including some crafty zither music, reminiscent of The Third Man) has a soft, full quality. The blaring ambulance siren is about as ambitious as the sound gets (and, for the record, the siren sounds fine).

There are English subtitles only.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

First things first. Where's the audio commentary by Nicholas Roeg? Or Theresa Russell? If any film needed seriously explaining, it's Bad Timing . So with no audio commentary, we get the next best thing: interviews, interviews, interviews.

Trade Secrets: Nicholas Roeg and Jeremy Thomas is a probing interview conducted in London in 2004. A hefty 28-minutes, it includes lots of vintage photos and some brief clips from the movie. Thomas says the original title of the movie was Illusions , but there was a new book with the same name, so they decided to change it. In fact, the title came during a conversation Roeg had during shooting, when someone mentioned that "most of life is about good timing." Considering the outcome of Alex and Milena's brief love affair, Bad Timing seemed the ultimate title for this story. After watching such a challenging film, you're advised to watch this supplement. If nothing else, you'll meet the two people at the wheel of this crazy train.

You can't release a Bad Timing DVD without hearing from Theresa Russell. In this interview , recorded in January of 2005, she discusses how the film changed her life (beyond the fact that she wound up marrying the director). Still beautiful and feisty, Russell says her agent preferred she put her energy into auditioning for Richard Donner's Superman . But she preferred working with Roeg, saying "I wanted to go for the ride." Just barely 22, she had no idea what she was in for. Good stuff from Theresa Russell.

There are sixteen deleted scenes, half with audio, half silent. Some of these scenes help flesh out character motivations and add procedural elements. That, of course, may be why Roeg deleted them. Some of these scenes were extraneous bits that deserved to be cut. The picture includes plenty of little scratches, but the overall quality is quite strong, considering the age of this forgotten material. Total length is about 17 minutes.

The anamorphic trailer is trippy and sweet looking, with a smooth, if ever so slightly faded, picture. Still, this 1:15 trailer is in great shape.

Finally, there's a quality Gallery, containing poster art and on-set photos. Many of these snaps include director Roeg, so you'll be able to see what lucky man bagged a hottie like Theresa Russell.

A nice booklet contains an essay by Richard Combs and a 1980 Rolling Stone interview with Art Garfunkel.

Final Thoughts

Dangerously sensual and downright weird, Bad Timing could only come from director Nicholas Roeg. While at times its reach exceeds its grasp, committed performances from Theresa Russell and Art Garfunkel make the film a challenging way to spend a Saturday night. Criterion comes through with a nice transfer and while a Roeg commentary would have been aces, the supplements provided are good enough.