Posted on 05/10/2002 2:43:59 PM PDT by dpwiener
(WARNING: The review below of the movie "Unfaithful" contains spoilers. Not that there's much that isn't already spoiled.)
Back on April 21st I attended a free screening of "Unfaithful", which is billed as a steamy suspense thriller starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere. Since the movie opens today, I now feel free to reveal my opinion. I'll put it this way: If you have even the slightest inclination to plunk down $8 (or whatever it is in your locality) for a ticket, I recommend that you instead stuff that money into your garbage disposal and grind it up; you'll still come out ahead.
I only wish that the writers had shoved their script into a garbage disposal before the movie was shot. Or, come to think of it, maybe they did.
Here's the gist [SPOILER WARNING REMINDER]: A perfectly happy family lives in suburbia near New York. The middle-aged husband and wife (Gere and Lane) love each other, have an adorable son, both lead active and fulfilling lives, and are financially well off. Then the wife (literally) bumps into an extremely handsome, young French book dealer (played by Olivier Martinez). She is willingly seduced by the young stud (which turns out to be standard operating procedure for him) and soon can't get enough of him. There are lots of graphic sex scenes. She lies to her husband; he suspects and has her followed by a private investigator; he confronts her lover and semi-accidentally kills the guy; he tries to cover it up; the police suspect but can't prove anything; the wife finds out what he did; and in a spasm of conscience he turns himself in to the police.
That's it. There's no real suspense. The plot moves at a glacial pace. The characters do stupid things for no good reasons. Instead of caring about the main characters, you just kind of feel soiled and embarrassed by them, and vaguely apprehensive about what mistakes they'll make next.
Even the sex scenes seem to have the opposite of their intended effect. (It should go without saying that this is not a movie to see if you are the least bit prudish about sex.) There's never even a pretense of justification. The husband appears to be a flawless person, loving and handsome and fun to be with, and someone whom she in turn loves. Nor is her affair a one-time mistake (as in the movie "Fatal Attraction"). She acts like she's addicted to the Frenchman, and he simply makes himself available to her because it would be out of character for him not to.
As the movie dragged on and on, my thoughts soon changed from "What is the point of this?" to "How much longer until it's over?".
Was there anything good in the movie? Well, the 8-year-old son, played by Erik Per Sullivan, was very cute. He was also mostly irrelevant. The main actors did a fairly decent job of acting, given what they had to work with. And the movie trailer was excellent; if that was all I had to go on I might have been fooled into paying cash.
You now have advanced warning. Be wise, and learn from my experience.
Well, the 8-year-old son, played by Erik Per Sullivan, was very cute.
Malcolm in the Middle bump.
Speaking of bad movies - I've seen the previews of the new animated film about the wild stallion, and from what I can tell, all the white men are evil animal abusers, and the Native Americans are kind, gentle animal lovers. I'll pass.
Hey, for the exact same experience, just head down to the video store and rent:
At least you'll have Michelle Pfeiffer to look at...
Mark W.
Only 7 months and 1 week til Two Towers. That and Spider-Man are the only things I plan to see this year.
Is this supposed to be edifying? Is it supposed to be enlightening? Is it supposed to be an offering of eroticism?
Well, needless to say I don't need your review to know that I won't be wasting my time on this junk. But I do think you've made it clear for anyone who might entertain the thought of viewing this tripe. Let's hope they're listening. As far as I am concerned Richard can take his collective movie efforts and stuff them where the sun don't shine. I had thought Diane Lane had a little more sense than to involve herself in this type of stuff. Evidently I was wrong.
Dan
Diane Lane's not bad to look at either...
I thought "What Lies Beneath" was an okay movie. The plot had some real suspense, and was purposeful (albeit slow-paced). Harrison Ford was able to convey at least a semi-plausible motivation for his character's actions.
So if you hated "What Lies Beneath" and I thought it was okay, but I hated "Unfaithful", that should tell you something about the latter's relative merits.
I'll be interested in hearing your opinion of it. At the end of the free screening (which they assured us was the final cut, except for fixing some minor technical problems such as when the sound cut out for a second or two), there was pretty much a dead silence from the audience. My impression was that virtually everyone shared a sense of relief that the movie was finally over with.
So I was surprised that the studio was able to extract a number of favorable quotes from various movie reviews, for use in the newspaper ads. Of course the quotes tended to focus on the acting of the movie's stars, which I'll concede wasn't bad; they were merely overwhelmed by the excruciatingly boring script.
No, this is a pseudo-remake of La Femme Infidele (The Unfaithful Wife), but apparently without any of the good points of the original. Here is script review and comparison that I found.
The more watches at the end of my review, the worse the movie. I remember Nashville being an "8" watcher. Actually, it might have deserved more, but I walked out on it after the first twenty hours or so were over with no apparent end in sight.
Why pay to help Hollywood glamorize adultery?
She's quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses. She conveys vulnerability without innocence, which is tough to do.
I was watching "An Officer and a Gentleman" again a few weeks ago, when it was on cable. Gere gave a really remarkable performance in that film, especially with the love scenes. Apparently he and Debra Winger couldn't stand each other, but you'd never know it from watching the movie.
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