Nymphomaniac Vol. II: Did We Really Need This?

Okay, so I finally slogged through Nymphomaniac Vol. II. And honestly? I'm feeling a bit…underwhelmed. Lars von Trier always strikes me as someone trying way too hard to be edgy. I get it, sex is a thing, and sometimes it's messy and complicated. But did we really need another two hours of Jo's…adventures? I mean, the first one was already pushing it for me. Some scenes were definitely impactful, sure. The Willem Dafoe bits as L are disturbing, but that's kind of what he's good at, right? He always seems to excel at playing the worst type of people. And I guess Charlotte Gainsbourg commits, but part of me just felt like she was phoning it in. All the pseudo-intellectual philosophizing with Stellan Skarsgård just felt tedious this time around. Like they crammed in any semi-relevant topic they could find. I think maybe what bothers me most is that it ultimately ends up feeling nihilistic without saying anything particularly profound. It's like Von Trier set out to shock, and forgot to actually say something. Or he did say something, and it just wasn't very interesting. IDK, maybe someone can explain why this is actually secretly brilliant. I'm open to being wrong, but right now I'm just thinking I could've used that time for something more productive, like watching paint dry. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the shock value felt cheap, and the story kinda unfulfilling. Thoughts?