Nymphomaniac
ニンフォマニアック
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A woman recounts her sexual history in chapters to a celibate bachelor; four hours, two volumes, body doubles and real intercourse.
Seligman, a solitary, bookish bachelor, finds a woman beaten in the alley behind his flat and takes her in. She is Joe, and in eight chapters she tells him the story of her sexual life, while he answers with digressions on fly fishing, Bach and the church. He is a virgin, he tells her, and without desire, which makes him an ideal listener.
Joe grows up with a loving father and a cold mother. At fifteen she loses her virginity to a neighbour, Jerôme, who afterwards goes back to his moped. Later, still under age, she and her friend B compete to have sex with the most men on a train. The film plays it as a game; the men who join in are sexually abusing two minors. Joe wins by sexually assaulting a married passenger who has refused them both. She drops out of medical school to become a secretary, and her boss is Jerôme; by the time she admits her feelings, he has left with another woman. She takes many lovers. Her father dies of cancer in hospital, with only Joe beside him. When she meets Jerôme again, she can no longer feel anything.
She has a son, Marcel, with Jerôme, and seeks pain from K, a man who beats the women who come to him. One Christmas, Marcel, left alone, wanders onto a snowy balcony; Jerôme rescues him and makes her choose between the family and herself. She chooses herself, and Marcel goes into foster care. Pregnant again years later, she ends the pregnancy herself. She walks out of a sex-addiction group, proud of what she is, and becomes a debt collector. Her employer, L, tells her to groom P, the fifteen-year-old daughter of criminals, to work with her. Joe is repelled at first; after P turns eighteen, they become lovers. A job takes them to Jerôme's door, and P begins an affair with him. Joe ambushes the pair in an alley to kill them, and fails. Jerôme beats her and has sex with P in front of her. That is where Seligman found her.
Joe says she has at last found a friend, and falls asleep. Seligman tries to rape her. She wakes and shoots him, and flees.
Starring
Charlotte Gainsbourgas Joe
A woman found beaten in an alley, who tells a stranger the story of her sexual life up to the night he finds her.
Joe’s story
Found beaten in an alley, Joe tells Seligman her life as a confession. Her first lover, when she is fifteen, is a neighbour, Jerôme. Still a minor, she and her friend B compete for men on a train: the men who join in are sexually abusing two girls, and she wins by sexually assaulting a married passenger. She sits alone with her dying father, and when she and Jerôme come together at last, feels nothing. She has a son with him, then chooses herself over her family. As a debt collector she takes on P, her lover once P is eighteen; when P takes up with Jerôme, Joe tries to kill them, fails, and is beaten. Unburdened, she calls Seligman her friend and sleeps. Waking to find him trying to rape her, she shoots him and flees.
Stacy Martinas Young Joe
Joe from her teens to her early thirties, restless and reckless, chasing a feeling she keeps losing.
Stellan Skarsgårdas Seligman
A solitary, bookish bachelor who takes Joe in and listens, claiming his own lack of desire makes him an ideal listener.
Seligman’s story
Seligman finds Joe beaten in the alley behind his flat, takes her in and listens through the night. He answers each chapter of her life with a digression, on fly fishing, the Fibonacci sequence, Bach, the church, turning her story into allegory until she complains that he cannot relate to it. He is a virgin, he says, and without desire, which makes him the ideal listener. He argues that her shame comes from how women are judged, and at the end tells her that she failed to fire at Jerôme because she could not bring herself to kill. She falls asleep, calling him a true friend. In the dark he comes back into the room and tries to rape her. She wakes, reaches for the gun and shoots him.
Shia LaBeoufas Jerôme Morris
The man who keeps returning to Joe's life: her first partner, later her boss and the father of her son.
Jerôme Morris’s story
Jerôme is Joe's first lover when she is fifteen; afterwards he goes back to fixing his moped. Years later he is her boss, frustrated when she sleeps with her colleagues instead. By the time she writes to him of her feelings, he has left with another secretary, Liz. Having left Liz, he meets Joe again in a park and they become lovers, though she can no longer feel anything. They have a son, Marcel, and he lets her see other men. One Christmas he rescues Marcel from a snowy balcony and makes her choose between the family and herself; she chooses herself. Years later P, the young woman Joe has trained, begins an affair with him. When Joe ambushes them in an alley, he beats her and has sex with P in front of her.
Christian Slateras Joe's Father
Joe's loving father, who dies of cancer in hospital with only his daughter beside him.
Why it matters
Nymphomaniac puts female desire at the centre of an epic and refuses to treat it as either a pathology or a liberation. Lars von Trier released it in two volumes, four hours long in the international version and five and a half in the director's cut, and filmed its sex using body doubles and digital compositing. Its structure is an argument. Joe tells her life as a confession of guilt; Seligman, her listener, keeps turning it into lessons in fishing, music and theology, and argues that her shame comes from how women are judged. The film tests that argument hard, through a sexual assault, a child abandoned, a self-induced abortion and a girl groomed, and ends by exposing the listener's detachment as a pose. The question it leaves is who gets to tell a woman's story of her own desire, and what happens when a man who claims to have none takes it over.