Although this piece is not exactly ideal cinema material, its deliberate pace, carefully considered acting and doomy background music do sneak under your guard after a while.

The catalyst to the action, such as it is, is James Spader as a drifter majoring in weirdness who looks up an old friend (Peter Gallagher) whose affair with his wife's sister (Laura San Giacomo) is on the verge of putting an end to to his crumbling yuppie marriage to Andie MacDowell.

Spader's occupation is interviewing women about their sex lives, and during the course of the next few days, some 'trapped' people are freed and 'free' people deservedly trapped.

Despite its foul language and sombre approach to the eponymous items, this is a film which champions, in the end, all the traditional values of love and happiness.

Spader is perfectly cast as the alienated soul who can only 'get on' with his tapes, and MacDowell gives a glowing account of the wronged wife who, clearly going round the bend at the start of the film, is accidentally and miraculously given a chance to repair her life.