The film starts with the camera zeroing in on a theater and taking us inside, where the action occurs, until at the end the camera retreats to a view from outside the theater, adding a rounded finish to what we have witnessed.

The fine French actor Mathieu Amalric, who intriguingly looks quite a bit like Polanski, is playing Thomas, a director who has been holding auditions seeking the right actress to play the woman in an adaptation of the 19th century novel “Venus in Furs” by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose last name bequeathed the word masochist. Thomas is packing up to leave when Emmanuelle Seigner as Vanda (in real life married to Polanski) barges in too late but proceeds to talk Thomas into letting her read. She seems all wrong for the role. But she persuasively persists, and not only gets to audition, but gets Thomas to read the male role with her.

Therein lies the substance of the play, which she has at first crudely characterized as S and M porn. But Vanda morphs into the role with finesse. She has already memorized the part and brought a costume with her. Suddenly she looks as if she has stepped out of the novel’s period. She surprises Thomas with knowledge about him and his private life. Vanda is exceedingly Well prepared.

In the theater the role proved to be a career-booster for actress Nina Arianda, who was mesmerizing. Seigner is especially beautiful with a goddess-like look and stature that dominates the screen. Her acting rises magnificently to the occasion, and she moves into the dominant role of the play, as well as dominatrix in the relationship that develops with Thomas.

The film moves back and forth between the play that depicts a sadomasochistic situation in the reading and periodically shifts into director-actress discussion. In both, Thomas as the male lead and Thomas as director falls increasingly into the erotic, subservient position forced upon him by the dynamic woman asserting control in and out of the play.

It becomes clear that Vanda not only has a feminist agenda, but is using the opportunity to strike back at the director for all the rebuffs she has endured as an actress trying to get a break in a male-dominated theater world. All of this is expressed as Thomas sinks into an increasingly subservient position within the sadomasochistic ambience created. Yes, the film is erotic, and the acting duet generates the sexually-charged vibes that can both titillate viewers and makes some uncomfortable.