Bad Timing

All the failed attempts at relationships across Roeg’s oeuvre come to a head of sorts in BAD TIMING. The fact that the notions of romantic happiness held by the two young Americans – Milena (Theresa Russell) and Alex (Art Garfunkel) – who meet in a morbidly grey Vienna cannot be reconciled is already evident from their dialogue in front of Gustav Klimt’s painting ‘The Kiss’: ‘They look happy.’ ‘That’s because they don’t know each other yet.’ After Milena is taken to the emergency room at the start of the film following an overdose and Alex is questioned by a detective (Harvey Keitel), a fragmented picture of a destructive relationship equally characterized by attraction and repulsion begins to emerge through a complex series of flashbacks, culminating in an act of violence committed by Alex against the unconscious Milena. (al)