Scenes of a Sexual Nature Review

A warm summer's day and one of London's nicest parks is the setting for this collection of vignettes about love, life and sex. The movie tells seven stories taking place on Hampstead Heath during one afternoon, including the reuniting of two elderly friends (Benjamin Whitrow and Eileen Atkins) who haven't seen each other for years, a husband with a wandering eye (Andrew Lincoln) and his understandably put-out wife (Holly Aird) and a gay couple (Ewan McGregor and Douglas Hodge) who are discussing the idea of becoming parents.

Now its fair to say that not all the stories work but given that director Ed Blum has managed to create the film (and assemble a very impressive cast) for just over £250,000, "Scenes Of A Sexual Nature" certainly has a lot going for it. By recruiting the likes of McGregor, Sophie Okonedo, Hugh Bonneville and Catherine Tate, Blum's movie is certainly ambitious while a sun-drenched Hampstead Heath is always extremely easy on the eye. However Blum's ambition may also be the reason some parts of "Scenes of a Sexual Nature" don't work. By trying to cram seven stories into an hour and a half some pairings certainly get short shrift, especially that of Adrian Lester and Catherine Tate. Theirs is one of the most interesting stories - they're a divorcing couple who still love each other deeply - but it's given too little screentime and so feels underdeveloped.

Given that "Scenes Of A Sexual Nature" is Blum's first foray into feature film-making, it's certainly a decent start. However maybe a bit of trimming or even expanding in places would have been helpful.