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Unfaithful
Directed by Adrian Lyne
Starring: Diane Lane, Olivier Martinez, Richard Gere, Erik Per Sullivan
Running Time: 2:00
Country: USA
Year: 2002
Web: Official Site
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Deaths in Adrian Lyne movies are acceptable. Murder is not. We know there will definitely be lots of sex, perhaps erotic but at least passionate, along with the usual betrayal that someone unwisely commits and holds grave consequences (no more nookie!). Someone may die. But a cold-blooded murder is new and awkward.
Unfaithful is loosely based on Claude Chabrol's La Femme Infidèle. Perhaps as a wink to its French roots, French actor Olivier Martinez was cast as Paul Martel, the object of Diane Lane's affections. Richard Gere plays Ed Sumner, the suburban stiff who suspects his wife Connie is having an affair. She is. With Olivier Martinez.
There's no question as to why she chooses to have an affair. A khaki-clad middle-aged man who owns a security (the irony!) company or a young, buff Frenchman, also shirtless and living in hip SoHo? Hmmm. Though the suburbanite is Richard Gere, spending her days doing his laundry and adding to their collection of fancy snow globes can't be nearly as fun as being seduced by someone living in NYC who owns lots of books in a stylish bachelor pad. Connie and Ed's marriage isn't horrible, just a bit dull.
The film starts off well enough. The pace is as seductive as the sensual music. Life in the suburbs is very Martha Stewart and the shots in New York add the necessary grit. After all, Connie's not having an affair with her son's football coach. Martinez and Lane let the chemistry take over with more than one steamy scene during their furtive encounters, while Gere's fears shift into fourth gear when he notices lots of new fancy underwear and a wife with more frequent absences.
A woman's infidelity is inevitably mired in chaos. Suburban homemaker goes to the big city and bumps into a beautiful Frenchman. Passions burn. Husband gets suspicious, hires a detective, kills the lover. Though this may seem implausible, the premise will cater to a wife's greatest fantasy and a husband's greatest fear. Unfortunately, the plot takes a turn down "No way!" Lane. What follows next is what's implausible and it kills the tone and rhythm of the film. The murder itself is outrageous and the aftermath of choices made by the characters deserve no explanation.
Lane shines given the material she's got. She has the spark of eroticism and intelligence, along with her winsome beauty, to keep the film going. Her scene on the train after her first tryst with Paul is showcases her talent—she is able to gain the audience's sympathy as she agonizes one moment, but then relishes in her triumphant secret the next. This role should put her back on Hollywood radar. Hopefully she won't be taking on roles as no-holds-barred lawyer with a mission or a stripper/detective with cancer and one last murder to solve. Gere plays the donkey rather than the stallion here. A vengeful donkey, but one lacking his usual charm. His frustration is a bit too boring at times. In the mysterious stallion role, Martinez doesn't have to really do much other than be eye candy. When he's not seducing Connie, we don't really know whether he's reading any of the books stacked ceiling-to-floor in his room or if he's watching TRL.
Though Unfaithful treats the audience with a few forbidden fruits that recall the heydey of 9 1/2 Weeks, the rest is too hard to swallow.
Ed Dantes
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Unfaithful review review
