When Intimate Relations tries to be a dark comedy about adultery and obsession, it's a hysterical success, but halfway through, when the true events which inspired the film poke their ugliness into the ridiculous plot, you'll be dying for these lunatics to kill one another and put you out of your misery.

Writer/director Philip Goodhew introduces a handful of characters, all about to collapse under the weight of their repressed urges. Harold Guppy (Rupert Graves) is a warm and funny rapscallion with a moderate fuse just set loose from the Merchant Marines. He rents a room from the lascivious "Mum" Beasely (Julie Waters) as she clutches at the last dusty vestiges of her sexuality. Mum refuses her drunk husband Stanley's advances at every turn (he sits at the breakfast table vigorously polishing the shoe at the end of his wooden leg) because she sees Harold as a way to relive her youth as a port of wrong for local sailors. Harold, meanwhile, catches the eye of Mum's blossoming daughter, Joyce. Inevitably Joyce catches Howard and Mum in the act and begins to blackmail her for all the privileges a 13-year-old dreams of, but eventually this sick little triangle gives in to the absurdity of reality. Screens at the Copley Place at 5:20, 7:30, and 10 p.m., and on Sunday at 10:40 a.m. and 12:50 and 3 p.m.