Cinema is weird. Honestly, it's often at its weirdest when a director decides to turn a personal obsession into a full-scale feature film. That's basically what happened with 8 1/2 Women, the 1999 film by Peter Greenaway. If you’ve ever sat through a Greenaway flick, you know he doesn’t really do "normal" plots. He does lists. He does architecture. He does naked bodies arranged like Renaissance paintings. But with this specific movie, he took a direct swing at Federico Fellini’s masterpiece 8 ½ and turned it into a bizarre, satirical exploration of male fantasy and the absurdity of sexual hoarding.
It's a movie that people still argue about in film school hallways. Some call it a masterpiece of postmodern irony; others think it’s just a pretentious mess. You’ve probably seen the title pop up in "weirdest movies of the 90s" lists, and for good reason.
What is 8 1/2 Women actually about?
The premise is kinda ridiculous, but it stays remarkably consistent to its own internal logic. We follow a wealthy businessman named Philip Emmenthal and his son, Storey. They live in Geneva. After Philip’s wife dies, the two of them—who are strangely close, bordering on the creepy—decide to cope with their grief by opening a private harem. They aren't looking for just anyone, though. They want to recreate specific archetypes.
They start collecting women based on various tropes and personal fixations. There's a nun, a maid, a high-society lady, and even a woman obsessed with pigs. It’s a literal manifestation of the male gaze gone off the rails. Philip and Storey aren't exactly "heroes" here. They are more like clinical observers of their own indulgence. Greenaway uses the 8 1/2 Women to poke fun at the way men try to categorize and "collect" female identities, though he does it with so much stylized nudity and baroque set design that the satire sometimes gets lost in the aesthetics.
The "half" woman in the title? That's Beryl. She’s an amputee. Greenaway has always had a thing for physical "imperfections" or variations, and her character serves as a bit of a mathematical wrench in the father-son duo's perfect plan.
The Fellini connection and the number game
You can't talk about this film without talking about Fellini. The title is a massive, neon-sign-level nod to 8 ½, the 1963 film about a director struggling with a creative block. But where Fellini was soulful and dreamlike, Greenaway is cold and calculating.
💡 You might also like: Why Love Island Season 7 Episode 23 Still Feels Like a Fever Dream
He loves numbers. Like, really loves them.
In Drowning by Numbers, everything is counted. In 8 1/2 Women, the structure is rigid. He isn't trying to remake Fellini's movie. He's trying to deconstruct the idea of the movie. Fellini had his "harem sequence" which was a dream-like manifestation of the protagonist's desires and guilts. Greenaway says, "Okay, what if a guy actually tried to build that in real life with cold, hard cash?"
It turns out, it's pretty pathetic.
The film explores the emptiness of achieving your fantasies. Once Philip and Storey have their house full of women, they don't seem particularly happy. They seem bored. They seem like they're managing a very expensive, very horny museum. It's a critique of the "more is better" philosophy that dominated the late 20th century.
Why the critics hated (and loved) it
When it premiered at Cannes, the reception was... mixed. To put it mildly.
📖 Related: When Was Kai Cenat Born? What You Didn't Know About His Early Life
Roger Ebert, who usually gave Greenaway a fair shake, found it tedious. He basically said the movie felt like a lecture. On the other hand, European critics often praised its boldness. You see, 8 1/2 Women sits in this uncomfortable middle ground. It’s too "artsy" for a mainstream audience looking for a comedy, but it’s too crass and obsessed with the physical for some high-brow critics who want their cinema to be "important."
The acting is actually top-tier, even if the characters are ciphers. John Standing plays Philip with a wonderful, dry exhaustion. Matthew Delamere as Storey is perfectly unsettling. Then you have Vivian Wu, Toni Collette, and Polly Walker. Yes, that Toni Collette. Seeing her in a Greenaway film is a reminder of just how fearless her career choices have always been. She plays Griselda, the nun, and she brings a level of intensity that the script almost doesn't deserve.
Real-world influences and the Greenaway style
- The Look: Every frame looks like a painting by Vermeer or Rembrandt. The lighting is deliberate. Shadows matter.
- The Music: Michael Nyman didn't score this one (their legendary partnership had soured by then), so the music is a mix of classical pastiche that feels very "Greenaway-ish" but lacks that specific Nyman drive.
- The Dialogue: People don't talk; they declaim. They deliver monologues about the history of concubines or the nature of grief.
Is it "human-quality" storytelling? In the sense that it captures human neurosis, yes. In the sense that people actually act this way? Not a chance.
The legacy of the "Harem" film
The movie came out right at the end of the 90s, a decade that was obsessed with "edgy" independent cinema. Think about Happiness or The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. 8 1/2 Women was part of that wave of films meant to shock the bourgeoisie.
But looking back at it now, in 2026, it feels like a time capsule. It’s a relic of a time when directors were given millions of dollars to make weird, self-indulgent, highly intellectualized erotic dramas. We don't really get those anymore. Today, everything is a franchise or a micro-budget horror flick.
👉 See also: Anjelica Huston in The Addams Family: What You Didn't Know About Morticia
The film also forces a conversation about the "Male Gaze." Greenaway is often accused of being a voyeur. He doesn't deny it. But by making the men in the film so ridiculous and eventually so miserable, he’s making a point. The "collection" of 8 1/2 Women eventually falls apart because women aren't objects to be collected. They have their own agendas. They have their own lives. Philip and Storey think they are the masters of the house, but they’re actually just the bankroll.
Practical takeaways for the curious viewer
If you're actually going to sit down and watch this, you need to prepare yourself. It's not a "popcorn and chill" movie. It’s a "glass of wine and a notebook" movie.
First, don't expect a traditional narrative arc. It's episodic. It moves from one woman to the next as they are "acquired." Second, pay attention to the backgrounds. Greenaway hides details in the set design that often comment on the action more than the dialogue does. Third, remember that it's supposed to be funny. It’s a very, very dark British comedy. If you aren't laughing at the absurdity of a man trying to find the "perfect" maid for his harem, you're missing the point.
The film is currently available on various boutique streaming services (like MUBI or occasionally Criterion Channel). It hasn't had a massive 4K restoration like some of his other works, but the DVD and Blu-ray transfers hold up reasonably well because the cinematography was so crisp to begin with.
Steps to appreciate Greenaway's work:
- Watch "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" first. It’s his most accessible masterpiece.
- Read up on Federico Fellini. Understanding the source of the "8 1/2" reference makes the satire much sharper.
- Look at 17th-century Dutch painting. Greenaway was a painter before he was a director. His visual language is entirely based on the Golden Age of Dutch art.
- Accept the artifice. Don't look for realism. Look for patterns.
Ultimately, 8 1/2 Women is a film about the failure of the imagination. It shows that even with unlimited wealth and the ability to manifest your every whim, you can't escape the fundamental loneliness of being human. It’s a cynical, beautiful, frustrating, and unique piece of cinema that could only have come from one specific, slightly obsessed mind.
If you want to dive deeper into the world of "difficult" cinema, your next step should be looking into the broader filmography of Peter Greenaway, specifically his work on the Tulse Luper Suitcases. It's even more dense, more numerical, and arguably more insane than the harem of Geneva. Just don't expect any easy answers. Greenaway doesn't do those.
Actionable Insight: To truly "get" the film, watch the first 15 minutes of Fellini's 8 ½ immediately followed by the opening of Greenaway's film. The contrast in how they handle "desire" tells you everything you need to know about the difference between Italian surrealism and British structuralism.