Introduced by Linda WilliamsAdapted from the work of British writer Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy takes the typical Last Tango in Paris strangers-meet-for-sex scenario and gives it a welcome shove into the twenty-first century. The film's boundary-breaking sexuality outdid other supposedly explicit films, triggering did-they-or-didn't-they articles for months afterwards ("Yes, they're really doing it!" calmly noted the Manchester Guardian). Shouts over the sex, though, obscured Intimacy's innovative refashioning of the Last Tango narrative into a far more realistic, working-class world. Two strangers, a just-divorced bar owner and an unhappily married actress, meet weekly for anonymous sex in the man's dingy flat; soon, however, one wants something slightly more, some hint of intimacy, and begins to dangerously encroach into the other's life. Timothy Spall (a frequent Mike Leigh collaborator) adds a welcome jolt as the woman's taxi-driver husband, while cult musicians Marianne Faithful and Alastair Galbraith appear as friends of the lovers. - Jason Sanders