PARK CITY -- If you could get rid of all the sex in "Intimacy," you'd have a watchable, intelligent character study. A story about the brutality of modern love, this French film is based on short stories by Hanif Kureishi and is saturated with full-frontal sex shots. Together with its hard, grim story line, "Intimacy" will likely have relationships with U.S. audiences only on the festival circuit.

In this grueling depiction of the isolation and loneliness of two adults who meet every Wednesday to have in tense and rough sex, we're assaulted by jarring close-ups of intense sexuality -- in short, "Intimacy" is akin to an intellectual porn show. But in this instance, the practitioners are not sexual acrobats or particularly attractive performers but two dowdy middle-aged sorts, including Jay (Mark Rylance), who has just walked out on his wife and kids, and Claire (Kerry Fox), whom neither Jay nor we know much about because she just shows up, screws, puts on her clothes and splits.

Interspersed within these sex interludes are short snippets of Jay's current life: He lives in semi-bohemian squalor in a wretched cold-water flat, shifting around on the blankets and bedding that he has strewn about the floor. Other than swizzling up a cup of instant coffee for those who might dart in, Jay is not much on entertaining or social niceties. There's not much to his outer life either, other than his dreary job tending bar at a club and his intermittent forays to hook up for a quickie meet with his offspring. Not entire ly surprising, Jay begins to become obsessed with his mysterious sex partner, following her and trying to learn more about her. He believes that their sex-making has bonded them, and he begins to behave like a wounded puppy dog and quasi-stalker.

Invariably, the boning drones on, and we begin to get the film's message of the cold emptiness of many people's lives and, to an extent, how desperate we can become in our personal connections. It's a provocative point, but it's so gratingly hammered out by director Patrice Chereau that we soon become inured to the gruntings, groanings and meanderings of these people. Thematic point rammed into our senses: Move on, who cares? Give us a break with these unattractive body parts.

While the performers give aptly naturalistic performances -- they come across as sorry everyday losers -- "Intimacy" never brings any immediacy to our involvement with them or lures us into a closer bond. Because they're neither particularly likable nor sympathetic, we're left with a voyeuristic view of some strangers' lives whom we're never interested in other than, of course, an initial prurient curiosity.

Technically, "Intimacy" is suggestively composed and somewhat eloquent. Cinematographer Eric Gautier's dark, murky interior lensings clue us to the drabness of these people's lives, while Hayden Griffin's spare, strange production design echoes their abject emptiness.

INTIMACY
Telema Prods., StudioCanal France, Arte France Cinema, France 2 Cinema, WDR/Arte, Mikado Film, Azor Films
Producers: Patrick Cassavetti, Jacques Hinstin
Director: Patrice Chereau
Screenwriters: Anne-Louise Trividic, Patrice Chereau
Based on stories by: Hanif Kureishi
Additonal dialogue: Nigel Gearing
Executive producer: Charles Gassot
Director of photography: Eric Gautier
Production designer: Hayden Griffin
Costume designer: Caroline De Vivaise
Sound: Guillaume Sciama, Jean-Pierre LaForce
Editor: Francois Gedigier
Music: Eric Neveux
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jay: Mark Rylance
Claire: Kerry Fox
Andy: Timothy Spall
Victor: Alastair Galbraith
Ian: Philippe Calvario
Betty: Marianne Faithfull
Susan: Susannah Harker
Pam: Rebecca Palmer
Running time -- 119 minutes
No MPAA rating