Synopsis
While traveling in Paris, author Henry Miller and his wife, June, meet Anais Nin, and sexual sparks fly as Nin starts an affair with the openly bisexual June. When June is forced to return to the U.S., she gives Nin her blessing to sleep with her husband. Then, when June returns to France, an unexpected, and sometimes contentious, threesome forms.
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Cast
- Fred WardHenry Miller
- Uma ThurmanJune Miller
- Maria de MedeirosAnais Nin
- Kevin SpaceyRichard Osborn
- Bruce MyersJack
- Juan Luis BuñuelPublisher
- Féodor AtkinePaco Miralles
- Sylvie HuguelEmilia
- Artus de PenguernBrassai
- Richard E. GrantHugo Guiler
Recommendations
- 80
Washington Post
An odd, slightly distanced tone seeps into the movie, almost as if the director were working in a foreign language. Only this keeps Henry & June from being a great movie. But in no way does it hold it back from being a beautiful, captivating and spectacularly uninhibited one. - 63
Washington Post
Ward has a mischievously good time. He makes this picture better than it deserves to be. - 60
Empire
An old-fashioned literary biopic with all cliches intact and some pseudo-steamy grapplings to keep interest, if you must, up. - 50
The Hollywood Reporter
While visually lush and inviting, this insular, self-absorbed film is more a violation than a celebration of the lives of two of literatures foremost sensualists, Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin. Little of Miller’s boisterous, anarchic spirit makes its way into this film. Nor is its superficial handling of Nin’s theme of a woman’s self-realization likely to satisfy her admirers. - 50
Time Out
Kaufman's account of the triangular affair between Henry Miller (Ward), his wife June (Thurman) and Anais Nin (Medeiros) in '30s Paris is certainly good to look at, edited like a dream, and about an hour too long. Intelligently scripted, particularly good on the pain in relationships, it doesn't shed much light on the literary commerce between the writers. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
Kaufman tries to project a kind of professorial sobriety, hoping his film will seem classy and serious instead of raunchy. We think it could've used more raunch, and we're sure Henry Miller (whose favorite film was L'AGE D'OR) would have agreed. - 50
Variety
In its depiction of Depression Paris and sexual candor, Henry & June succeeds. The central performances of Fred Ward, as the cynical, life-loving Miller, and Maria de Medeiros, as the beautiful, insatiable Anais, splendidly fulfill the director’s vision. Pic is less successful in gaining audience sympathy for these hedonists. Also, the character of June (Uma Thurman) is ill-defined. - 50
Boston Globe
Henry & June is a gorgeous film, one aimed at the intelligent and discriminating. As iconography, it's a stunner. But it would be better off as a silent. It's an example of talent and intelligence determined to do everything right, only to have almost everything come out wrong. [05 Oct 1990, p.53p]
