Sex without the X factor

I went into 9 Songs - "the most explicit film ever!" (copyright: almost everybody) - fully expecting to like it. For one, I love Michael Winterbottom. For two, I'm not in the least prudish. For three, I really think it's about time actors stopped doing pretend sex, and did proper sex. When actors talk about love scenes, they always say it's not about sex, it's about professionalism, as if you're the one who's being prurient just for bringing it up - but you'll notice that directors never cast a brother and sister opposite each other in a boy-girl way. QED.

For four, the great untold story of romantic comedies, even the best of them, is how much nooky people get in the first month of a relationship. It's too unromantic to bring it up, I guess, since the extension of that is that, after six months, they stop doing it altogether and start watching videos.

That's nearly five good reasons to like it - I've based major life decisions on fewer reasons than that. And yet the film is not great. It's not even all that good. And sometimes, it's actively annoying.

Matt (Keiran O'Brien) meets Lisa (Margot Stilley) at a Black Rebel Motorcyle gig in Brixton Academy. Already, I'm thinking: "I hope the songs are gonna be sexier than this - it sounds like getting-rid-of-guests music". But then maybe I'm being too literal/square/both. They go back and have sex, and I'll admit, it's always interesting to see people doing things that you know they do, but you're never normally allowed to watch.

It seemed to me to be pretty regular sex, the surprise of it being not the act itself, but that I was watching it on a screen and nobody was cosmetically enhanced or talking German.

Just some data points: Lisa says "faster, faster" a lot, like she's late for a meeting. I'd think that an impolite thing to say more than once a session, but maybe I'm just uptight. Matt, at one point, blindfolds her and ties her up, and just when you think he's going to start some dirty talk that really is dirty, he says, "You're on a beach in Thailand" - like a Thomas Cook advert!

Even Lisa's more imaginative riposte (something about a couple with huge breasts and some baby oil) couldn't redeem that for me.

Oh, and girls - I don't really know how to put this; your keyword is "oral" - most women actually can't get all the way to the bottom. It's only porn stars and Cosmo sex tips that make you feel like you ought to be able to.

Sorry, back to the songs. After some Von Bondies, which, I grant, some people do like, and some Elbow (do me a favour), I'm starting to think they should have ditched the songs and just called it 9 Snogs. But at track six we hit a truly sexy song, Michael, by Franz Ferdinand: that just made me want to go and listen to my Franz Ferdinand album.

You get quite a lot of zoning-out time in this movie, for all its brevity (69 minutes - it had to be, didn't it?). Like a Bruce Willis flick, where you can tell what's happening just from the "oof" noises, as soon as you hear anyone go "mmm-er" you can pretty much guess the rest.