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Verdict: About as sexy as going to the gynecologist.

Details: Starring Caroline Ducey. Directed by Catherine Breillat. Unrated, but contains graphic sex, full frontal nudity, bondage and violence (a rape). In French with subtitles. 1 hour, 36 minutes.

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Review: What do women in movies always do when they're having a crisis of some sort — be it spiritual, emotional, artistic or whatever?

Why, they go have lots of sex. Rough sex, indiscriminate sex, hot sex, quickie sex. Sort of like Emily Watson in "Breaking the Waves."

In "Romance," a dull little French film with an undeserved "hot" reputation (it is, however, graphic), Marie (Caroline Ducey) is having a crisis because her boyfriend, a passive, perfect-looking male model, won't have sex with her. We're never told why, exactly, but maybe it's because she keeps nagging him all the time about their sex life. Or maybe it's because she throws a hissy fit when he wears a T-shirt in bed. Or maybe it's just that she routinely says things like, "You despise me because I'm a woman."

Anyway, Marie is in crisis, so she starts having sex. Lots of it. Everything from consensual sex to rape. She even has sex with the principal (Francois Berleand) at the elementary school where she teaches. He claims to have seduced 10,000 women, despite the fact he's no stud muffin, looks-wise.

"Why me?" he asks rhetorically. "Because I talk to them." (He also, in Marie's case, ties them up, a process that takes so long that not only does it drain bondage of any possible erotic charge, it also becomes unintentionally comic.)

Actually, romance is the absolute last thing on "Romance's" mind. Director Catherine Breillat, who made the repulsive "36 Fillette" a few years ago, launches her heroine on a ludicrous I-can't-get-no-satisfaction sexual odyssey that's as pointless as it is pretentious (though she does seem to have more fun than Tom Cruise in "Eyes Wide Shut").

Granted, the early encounters are vaguely erotic, but they turn increasingly idiotic. Yes, there's genitalia galore, male and female. And yes, there are all kinds of sexual acts on view (hence the unrated status). But none of it is, um, stimulating — physically, emotionally or dramatically. After a point, all the on-screen groping becomes so borderline absurd and over-the-line boring that you wish the guys from "Mystery Science Theater 3000" were on hand to provide a running commentary.

Here's proof positive that explicit isn't always synonymous with titillating. If anything, "Romance" is about as much of a turn-on as flushing a dead roach down the toilet.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service

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