One might expect a book with such a broad scope to register as unfocused, diffuse—but to read Thomson is to know you’re in the hands of a skilled writer, one who thinks deeply and who can move between topics in a manner that, if not effortless, at least leaves one charmed enough not to notice the detours ... he has a knack for making us see our favorite performers in a new light while underscoring precisely what is so iconic or integral about their appeal ... In its blurring of personal experience, passionate movie-watching, and critical theory, Sleeping with Strangers raises several intriguing questions: did many Hollywood films of the Classical period throw a sidelong glance at the sanctity of marriage because these ostensibly heteronormative films were the work of so much gay talent? ... If you’re a film buff, or simply a reader who maintains a passing interest in Classic Hollywood, Sleeping with Strangers feels like being in great company; passionate and erudite...deeply necessary.

Whether the book works as a whole (I’m not sure it does) seems to me less important than the parts that sum it up, which in Thomson’s case contain more original insights, provocative asides and thought-inducing speculations than several volumes of a less talented writer’s efforts ... In the end, though, Sleeping With Strangers is larger than any of its hypotheses about 'the unease of straight manhood,' or its obvious points ('Porn is full of male hatred of women') — or, again, its sweeping statements, replete with slightly smarmy wordplay ... Thomson is set on linking our frenetic carnality on screen to our vexed carnality in real life, and in doing so he elucidates the cultural impact of film on the shadowy areas of our collective psyche — whether it be gender, racial politics or the male pursuit of power — with an unflinching, sardonic eye ... If it is true that he sometimes substitutes free association for deep thinking and throws out aperçus just to see if they’ll stick, it is also true that Sleeping With Strangers is dazzling in the effrontery of its opinions, even when they don’t quite hold up. Thomson, a stylist extraordinaire, has written an unaccountable and irresistible book.

Thomson is at his best when he’s mining these hidden veins of [desire], noticing a detail in a familiar film that helps you see the movie in a new way ... It’s the rare straight man well past middle age who tries to radically change how he thinks about a subject so fundamental. There’s a nobility in that quest, even when, still a novice at queer theory, Thomson sometimes fumbles the lingo, appearing to conflate the trans experience, bisexuality, and even vaguely kinky straight behavior under the generously spreading umbrella of 'gay' ... When he writes about the onscreen representation of female sexuality, Thomson seems less at ease and, tellingly, has less to say ... Still, many of his insights about the movies themselves shine ... But when it comes to the subject of offscreen, three-dimensional women and their exploitation by the Hollywood machine, Thomson’s evident good faith can’t save him from moments of tone-deafness painful enough to stir qualms ... Thomson’s struggle to fully grasp the first principle of the #MeToo movement—that women’s accounts of their experiences deserve, at long last, not to be drowned out by men’s voices—goes from awkward to enraging in a chapter near the end ... What this seductive yet at times repellent book never fully grapples with is the privilege required to grant yourself that innocence.

Thomson’s book is unlikely to strike the death blow to male supremacy. To the contrary, Sleeping With Strangers is steeped in the sexism of Hollywood. The author rarely considers women’s views, and the index offers this sad little entry: 'women’s films, 116, 120' ... The oddest thing about Sleeping With Strangers is that Thomson sees himself as an enlightened critic of male sexual behavior. His book is littered simultaneously with feminist truisms and overt sexism ... Sleeping With Strangers is an odd, confused cultural artifact. It presumes to explore how our desires are fired as we watch movies in the dark. But it seems rather to be a product of a dim awareness that certain behaviors and attitudes are no longer acceptable, along with an inability to imagine a world without them.

[Thomson's] analyses of how a range of movie stars, from Rudolph Valentino to Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and dozens of others, have impacted our thinking about sex and relationships are unfailingly provocative. Thomson is pretty much a walking encyclopedia of film history, and this is the kind of subject he can really sink his teeth into. Fascinating and illuminating.

Mr. Thomson’s love for most of the countless films he has seen is at once intense and embarrassed, needy and impatient, enraptured and dismissive. He knows that most movies are ridiculous, but no one is more keenly aware of how even the lousiest B-picture can address our deepest desires, or feed our deepest fears ... With a bravado that is probably unwise in these watchful times, he offers a challenge to the new consensus: 'The revelations of 2017, the litany of sexual harassment, never quite got to a key question: what are movies without male lust?' The trouble here, and it is surely another contribution to authorial discomfort, is that this line of argument tends to slow and even divert the book’s momentum ... Mr. Thomson is never more bracingly irreverent and disorderly—and funny—than when he sets about subverting the pieties attaching to 'manly films,' especially Westerns ... Mr. Thomson’s book has an endearing tendency to run away with itself.

The problem might be that from its title through to most characters and story lines covered in David Thomson's Sleeping With Strangers: How the Movies Shaped Desire, the author just isn't honest with himself, the audience, or most of the real people (stars, directors, writers, and more) drawn into his rambling narrative. The biggest problem is this book's distinct lack of a singular vision and Thomson's apparent unwillingness to accept changing times and perspectives ... The strange tone Thomson adopts early in this book never quite feels comfortable or legitimate ... It's not that Thomson's style isn't compelling and captivating ... Thomson is on track early on, but it doesn't seem he'll stay there for long ... Unfortunately, this staccato delivery of questionable observations never really amounts to anything, and Thomson's apparent eagerness to open threads without following through with them is frustrating ... As we leave Sleeping with Strangers, we're not more enlightened about or close to any answers as to gay subtexts in Hollywood films, the separation of desire into various areas (carnal, intellectual, spiritual), and we have no clear understanding that what was tolerated as recently as 20 years ago is no longer up for consideration.

The problem is that Sleeping With Strangers is really two books glommed into one. The first, about queer desire, overflows with dish, dirt and juicy detail on the interplay of gay and straight, power and passion, who did whom and where, over many decades in Hollywood. The second one, about women, gets decidedly short shrift ... Sleeping With Strangers is great fun at times, especially when the book revels in the underground details that fueled so many Hollywood films. Traveling the breadth and depth of 20th century film (exhaustively and sometimes exhaustingly), Thomson examines a wide variety of queer subtexts ... The trouble comes when Thomson’s book turns to women. (This is perhaps not surprising, given an opening quote from Norman Mailer, whose ego and swinish approach to women had few rivals, at least until recently.) Thomson admires a lot of actresses, but his focus remains on male stars and directors, even when he finally gets around to the #MeToo movement ...I really wanted to like this book; a lot of it is excellent. But it strikes me as less than the sum of its parts, and a disservice to the reader. I hope someone else is writing a feminist re-examination of film history that focuses on the exploitation of women and our lack of representation in the ranks of Hollywood writers, directors and composers … Molly Haskell to the rescue, perhaps?

... a fearless, personal, revealing and wildly original account of how men and women in American movies have affected the sexual desires all the rest of us have. This is a brand new way of looking at movie history—and a brutally frank one, too. Along the way, he traverses brilliantly such subjects as the crucial homosexual contribution to Hollywood and the prodigious misconduct charges against Weinstein ... This, I think, is Thomson's most powerful book and one of the smartest ever written about sex and the movies.

In his latest book, Thomson... puts on display an array of his virtues as a writer: clear, precise language; vast knowledge of his subject (from books, screens, interviews, and friendships); an open sense of humor; and attitude ... Literate, frank, and sometimes graphic—another essential volume from an essential writer.

Part personal moviegoing memoir, part deeply informed film history ... Thomson deploys his encyclopedic knowledge of film so genially and dexterously that readers who are movie aficionados will want to rewatch their favorites through his eyes.