“Your skin is like the Russian steppe,” Alba tells Natasha at one point, and it’s unclear whether Medem is parodying Alba’s tendency to romanticize or simply penning dodgy dialogue. The lens-friendly Yarovenko, as the more cautious Natasha, acquits herself well in her first leading role. Alba is spontaneous, carefree and engaging, and Anaya, in a career-best perf, exudes a natural charm that Medem allows to come to the fore. The script’s desire to show us just how emotionally open these two women are forces them to overanalyze their emotions, which ironically places a barrier between them and the audience. Indeed, it’s a man who represents the comic relief, in the form of Max (Enrico Lo Verso), a sexy, opera-singing waiter who brings a hot cucumber to their room, apologizing that the vibrator Alba ordered was not available. In keeping with one of Medem’s pet themes - the self-sufficiency of women - neither Natasha nor Alba has had positive experiences with men. The women show each other photos of their houses, via computer Medem seems fascinated by our techno-based ability to condense space and time, and the intimacies of this single hotel room are repeatedly contrasted with the vastnesses of the earth and even of space.

But Natasha’s backstory, about her Renaissance art-scholar sister and her abuse at the hands of her father, remains an open question until the final reel. When speaking, the women circle each other warily: It eventually becomes clear that both are emotionally damaged. But in this film about invented identities, question marks hover over much of what the women tell one another.Īs communication, sex proves less problematic and more fun than talking, and they return to it each time their situation becomes awkward. As a child, she was abandoned by her mother to an Arab sheikh who later got her pregnant.

The two women still know nothing about one another, so Alba tells her life story. The sex will become increasingly unfettered through the night as they explore their fantasies. Alba suggests Natasha come up to her hotel room and, after some resistance, Natasha agrees: Within five minutes, they’re making love. Dark, perky Spaniard Alba ( Elena Anaya) and tall, blonde Russian Natasha (Natasha Yarovenko ) are spending their last night in Rome.

Room in rome scenes