Eye Contact

Evening Standard (11Jan01): [Neil Monaghan]'s overt interests lie in sketching out the invisible lines between fantasy and reality that can all too easily become trip wires in this lap-dancing club. None of the four dancers - Anya, Tilly, Paris and Emelia - use their real names, and they create identities to suit the desires of men holding handfuls of money in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. [Kelly Brook]'s character, Anya, finds her protective web of lies beginning to tear dangerously when Hugo, a young banker in the City fast-lane, falls in love and asks for the relationship to go beyond the boundaries of his wallet. In a dialogue punctuated by pole-dancing sequences from all the girls, they play an elaborate game of trying to unmask each other psychologically. Brook can act - up to a point - but she limits herself to two basic scowling expressions, while her voice is never far away from a whine. [Keir Charles] easily out-acts her as the sympathetically obnoxious Hugo, while [Terence Booth], as his older colleague, Philip, is a wonderful example of lip-biting mediocrity.