Desire is your average melodrama: its exaggerated characters and contentious events appeal to the emotions, dramatizing a scenario surely uncommon but by no means improbable. Estranged sisters Lucia and Ofelia differ greatly in their attitudes toward sex, the degree of satisfaction sex provides each of them, and their ability and desire to please a partner. Occasional flashbacks show the havoc already wrought as the women became who they now are.
Unexpectedly brought together at Lucia's wedding, the sisters and the men in their lives find self-control overwhelmed by desire. Fidelity gradually goes out the window. When this is discovered, the crap hits the fan.
Desire is well acted for a melodrama, and not unbelievable, I think, even though the lifestyle in a wealthy estate is so unfamiliar. The direction left a couple of minor points unclear; that might be the result of my dependence on subtitles. And it's explicitly sexual, which apparently surprised or offended a number of reviewers. If this film -- whose plot is all about sexual desire -- had not shown strongly simulated sex, I would have felt that it failed to suspend disbelief. Desire does not, however, come even close to the "primarily intended to arouse" standard of pornography: it's just explicit enough that you know the characters' passions. A couple of kids riding horsie on pillows, made relevant only by the adult narrator, is hardly worthy of complaint. (Unsurprisingly, this scene is removed from the version streaming on Amazon Prime video in 2024.)
Watch Desire when your brain is too tired for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but not yet jaded enough for Dirty Blondes from Beyond. It's not great, but it isn't horrible, either.
