Based on Martin Sherman's 1979 play, Bent is the story of gay Jewish con man Clive Owen, who is captured by the Nazis and sent to Dachau. After his lover is killed, he falls in love with another prisoner, and they attempt to survive their ordeal by covertly exchanging sexual fantasies under the watchful eyes of their captors. Unfortunately, Bent loses much in its transition from stage to screen: The film comes off as stagy and pretentious, and its attempts at symbolism are heavy-handed to the point of being laughable, particularly when the two lovers are assigned the task of moving rocks from one pile to another—apparently Sisyphus wasn't available for the task. Ultimately, it's just another triumph-of-the-human-spirit tale, albeit one with a fair amount of gay sex. The film does have a few merits, however: The acting is universally strong, Philip Glass' score is lovely, and Mick Jagger has a small but amusing cameo as a duplicitous drag queen. Nonetheless, even His Satanic Majesty in a red dress floating above a tastefully decadent Berlin nightclub, singing a torch song, can't redeem this dreary, anemic crypt of a film.