Review: 'The Look of Love', Starring Steve Coogan and Imogen Poots

After a number of successful collaborations in The Trip, 24 Hour Party People, and Tristram Shandy, Steve Coogan and prolific director Michael Winterbottom explore the gaudy and exotic world of porn and real estate king Paul Raymond in The Look of Love. While authentically capturing Raymond's swingin' hedonistic playboy lifestyle in free-spirited 1960s London, the film strains hard to give us a reason to empathize with the man who was once the richest in all of Britain.

If presented as merely a gaudy, decadent sex-filled romp then The Look of Love would be headed in the right direction, but Matt Greenhalgh's screenplay digs for meaning in Raymond's meaningless life, in which all of the money in the world can't fix the arrogance that left him a lonely, beaten man.  The familiar crash 'n burn story begins with an older Raymond telling his young granddaughter about all of the money properties he owns in Soho's red light district. Property equates to respectability, and for a man whose flashy lifestyle was built on a swath of upscale gentleman's clubs, having the look of a credible businessman is paramount. And business was definitely booming, keeping him and his gutsy, money-hungry wife (Anna Friel) in the upper echelon of high society. 

But as Raymond's empire grows and he begins to believe in his own hype, we see his standards fall in just about every way. His wife briefly gives in to his inhibitions, letting him indulge in the ways of a swinger until he finally ditches her for the young and stunning showgirl Fiona Richmond (Tamsin Egerton). Fiona further encourages his lewd behavior, joining him in three-ways and coke binges, and helping to introduce Raymond's impressionable daughter Debbie (Imogen Poots) into the club scene. Even Fiona grows weary of it after a while, but Raymond hardly seems to care, nor does he notice Debbie's destructive drug habits. He's too busy name-dropping The Beatles at every turn, indulging his every sexual whim, and looking for new ways to push his smutty men's magazine past the lines of good taste. His classy nightclubs devolve into crude, tasteless skin joints, and his theatrical ventures become a means to get the talentless Debbie some work in the entertainment biz. 

Told with great dash and energetic flair, the film features a bubbly Burt Bacharach-inspired score that sucks you into the spirit of the era. But as fun as the first half of the story is, that's how dull and dour it becomes as Raymond's world crashes down around him. Regardless of the inconsistent tone, it's all shallow style with a total lacking of substance, and we learn nothing about Raymond that would make us empathize with him, even though that is clearly the desired goal. We never see anything of him beyond his basest urges and shocking self-involvement. Coogan is solid in the role, but he's not exactly treading new ground playing a promiscuous, egoistic blowhard. 

The Look of Love isn't terrible, just maddeningly unsure of what it wants to be and why Raymond's story is worthy of being told.