When you find "The Romantic Englishwoman" on IMDB, you might notice that the poster displayed (at least currently) makes the movie look like a porno picture! Jackson is wearing practically nothing and the pose is quite provocative. While there is a bit of nudity in the film and its plot about adultery, it's not a porno picture and I hate when unscrupulous studios try to mismarket movies this way. And, if you are looking for a skin flick, you definitely should look elsewhere.
When the story begins, Elizabeth Fielding (Glenda Jackson) is on holiday by herself at a German spa town. She wants some alone time as well as to 'discover' herself. Her husband is a writer who is at home with the kids and she either had an affair when she's there or wants to have one and imagines it (it's a bit vague due to the direction but it looked like she probably DID engage in an affair). She arrives back home and at first their reunion is very passionate, as the Fieldings make love on their front lawn...something most couples only do on occasion (perhaps every other week)! But the marriage returns to the tedium that apparently drove her to take this solo vacation in the first place. and, soon the man she had an affair with (or fantasized about) arrives for a visit and, oddly, Mr. Fielding's writers block seems to disappear.
Despite this film being about a troubled marriage and adultery, it's also amazingly sterile and, perhaps, dull. I agree with another reviewer who also felt this way. They thought having the film begin with the husband and wife apart and for such a big part of the movie further emphasized this sterility and made you care much less about the Fieldings or their marriage. Too often, performances are rather stodgy and the fireworks you might expect just aren't there most of the time. It is not another "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"...where a couple's relationship spirals out of control with vitriol and tons of emotion.
