Review: ‘The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed,’ starring  Scott Cohen, Babak Tafti, Joanna Arnow, Michael Cyril Creighton and Alysia Reiner

May 18, 2024

by Carla Hay

“The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed”

Directed by Joanna Arnow

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the comedy/drama film “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A gloomy and drab office worker, who is 33 years old and a submissive in her casual BDSM relationships, drifts from one day to the next until she starts dating a man who is interested in her for reasons beyond sex. 

Culture Audience: “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” will appeal primarily to people who can tolerate oddball movies that have full-frontal nudity and quirky “slices of life” scenes.

“The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” is definitely not a mass-appeal movie. It’s intended for mature audiences who aren’t easily offended by full-frontal nudity and kinky sex scenes among consenting adults. Viewers of this unique but often-repetitive film about BDSM sex and social isolation must be willing to appreciate the very dry and deadpan comedy that is the opposite of Woody Allen’s talkative and fidgety films about neurotic New Yorkers. It’s a series of “slice of life” sketches rather than a comprehensive story.

Written and directed by Joanna Arnow (who also stars in the movie as the main protagonist), “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The movie screened at other major film festivals that year, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. It’s a minimalist and quirky movie that won’t appeal to people who don’t like slow-paced movies with open-ended conclusions.

“The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” is set in New York City (where the movie was filmed on location) and has a writer/director who plays an insecure protagonist who feels misunderstood and is struggling with relationship issues. It sounds a lot like the types of movies that made Oscar-winning filmmaker Allen famous, but Arnow has a filmmaking approach that is the antithesis of Allen’s style. The characters in Allen’s zippy-paced films are verbose and overly analytical about their problems, often to the point of being very self-absorbed. As seen in “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed,” the characters don’t do a lot of talking, and there are stretches of deliberately uncomfortable silences.

Arnow portrays Ann, a 33-year-old never-married bachelorette who lives alone and has no children and no friends. A graduate of Wesleyan University, she works in administration at an unnamed company that is in the business of selling unnamed products. Ann is the type of person who is so quiet and unassuming, people she’s known for years either don’t know many things about her or they forget. She’s the type of person who can be in a room and people will deliberately ignore her or don’t even notice that she is there.

Needless to say, Ann feels unappreciated in her job, where her supervisor Karl (played by Michael Cyril Creighton) is sometimes condescending to her and sometimes seems to feel sorry for her. It doesn’t help that Ann speaks in a monotone voice that would make anyone wonder if she has a personality. She is also the type of person who gives the impression that she is dull as dirt and has given up on trying to be happy.

As an example of how Ann hasn’t really connected with people at her job, one day she gets a plaque in the shape of a star, as a gift to commemorate her one-year anniversary on the job. “I’ve been here three-and-a-half years,” Ann says in her flat voice. No one seems to care. In group meetings, her ideas are dismissed by Karl. And in a one-on-one conversation with an unnamed supervisor (played by Ronda Swindell), the supervisor rudely tells Ann that Ann won’t last long at the company because Ann will make her own job obsolete.

Ann’s personal life does not have any fulfilling relationships either. Since she was 24, she’s been casually meeting up with a divorced, middle-aged father named Allen (played by Scott Cohen), in one of many relationships she has that revolve around BDSM, an acronym for bondage, discipline (or domination), sadism (or submission) and masochism. Ann is always the willing submissive in these non-monogamous relationships, because she seeks out sex partners who want to be the dominant person in their hookups.

The movie’s opening scene shows Ann in bed with Allen at his place. Allen is clothed under the covers and almost asleep. She is on top of the covers and completely naked. She grinds up against the left side of his body and says, “I love it how you don’t care if I cum and you don’t do anything for me. You go to sleep right after you finish. It’s so disrespectful and misogynist.” This is Ann’s version of foreplay.

“The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” has several scenes showing Ann doing things with BDSM sex partners. In addition to Allen, Ann hooks up with a musician/composer named Thomas (played by Peter Vack), whom she meets through a personal ad; verbally derogatory Elliot (played by Parish Bradley), who tells Ann to wear animal costume designs, such as rabbit ears and a pig’s snout, while he insults her; and emotionally open Chris (played by Babak Tafti), who is the only one who treats her like a real human being, not just a sexual plaything.

Warnow is the only person in the movie who has full-frontal nudity, which is her way of showing that Ann is the most vulnerable person in these scenes. Ann never seems self-conscious about her body, but she does seem self-conscious of her emotions and about the possibility that any of these relationships could turn into love. Being treated like garbage or sometimes asking to be in physical pain in the confines of BDSM is comforting to her. Falling in love is what really terrifies Ann, even though she doesn’t say it out loud. The closest that she will admit to having intimacy problems is when she tells Chris that she has never had an orgasm by someone touching her.

Ann’s immediate family members (who don’t have names in the movie) live nearby, but she is emotionally distant from them. Her family and co-workers do not know about her secretive life as a submissive in BDSM sex. Ann’s parents (played by David Arnow and Barbara Weiserbs) have given up hope that Ann will get married and have kids. Getting married and having children are sensitive subjects that Ann gets somewhat defensive about whenever those topics are discussed.

Ann’s older sister (played by Alysia Reiner) has a traditional life of being a married parent with children, but she doesn’t seem very happy either because she’s been having marital problems. Still, when the sisters are together or with their parents, Ann seems noticeably envious that her parents seem to love her sister more and consider Ann to be a “disappointment.” Ann doesn’t seem to have any interest in being around kids at all.

Even though Ann is a submissive in her sex life, that doesn’t mean she’s a complete pushover. There are times at her job and in her personal life when she asserts herself and makes it clear that she does or does not want to do something. However, don’t expect the movie to give a backstory about Ann to explain why she is the way she is.

“The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” is an example of how people shouldn’t always be judged by surface-level appearances. Based on her physical appearance, many people would assume that Ann is very prim and uptight and would be surprised to find out about her uninhibited BDSM sex life. It’s not a movie that is supposed to make people feel the same way that a romantic comedy makes people feel, but the movie is bold enough to be different. It offers an unusual perspective of someone who is usually not the protagonist of a movie and is usually overlooked in real life.

Magnolia Pictures released “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” in select U.S. cinemas on April 26, 2024.