CONTAINS SPOILERS "Unfaithful" has some very good scenes, and then it has others that seem to be trying (and failing) to make up for that horrible bunny-boiling hackjob of "Fatal Attraction". I'd say director Lyne took the "shotgun approach" -- shooting in all directions to see what he could hit. When it comes to documenting how a "good wife" can stray, he does a great job. Mistake number one, however, was portraying her husband (Gere) as so Hollywood-leading-man-perfect. Handsome, considerate, adores her (and of course is completely faithful, we automatically assume), attentive father, even helps clean up the kitchen, for godsake. I suppose the director wanted to say, "Even the perfect husband can never be sure his wife won't f**k someone else." Sure that's true, but only because THERE IS NO SUCH ANIMAL. Perfect, handsome, helpful screen husbands really bug me.
So, let's assume her husband is gorgeous and wonderful, but humanly flawed in some way besides putting his shirt on inside-out, and she has reason to feel bored or neglected, or irritated -- SOMETHING. And then she does something completely human, and gets caught up in the emotional undertow of the mind-blowing sex.
Gere's scene at the lover's apartment started out great. Gere was looking for something to hold onto, some meaning, some explanation, and I could see that he realized that nothing was going to give him that. He would probably just keep seeing that smirking Frenchman's face in his clouded mind for the rest of his life. Somehow he needed to get the smirk off his face. Still, the murder was over the top. That turned the movie from a realistic exploration into a silly thriller. Now the questions become too many to keep track of. Not simply, how does an affair happen and how do people live/deal with it? But, how do you clean up after a murder, what do you do with the body, how do you lie to the police, and how do you live with the crime for the rest of your life? Too much, not the central point of the movie, distracting, unreal.
Getting back to the real issue, one of my favorite moments came near the end, when Connie "flashed back" but revised in her fantasy the beginning of the affair: Instead of going up to his apartment, she managed to get a cab, and drove away, "seeing" herself make the other choice.
Pity that Lyne seems compelled to give us the hackneyed story of adultery destroying everything with its obsession. Someone needs to tell the other sides of the adultery story. But that will require a wiser hand than his.
So, let's assume her husband is gorgeous and wonderful, but humanly flawed in some way besides putting his shirt on inside-out, and she has reason to feel bored or neglected, or irritated -- SOMETHING. And then she does something completely human, and gets caught up in the emotional undertow of the mind-blowing sex.
Gere's scene at the lover's apartment started out great. Gere was looking for something to hold onto, some meaning, some explanation, and I could see that he realized that nothing was going to give him that. He would probably just keep seeing that smirking Frenchman's face in his clouded mind for the rest of his life. Somehow he needed to get the smirk off his face. Still, the murder was over the top. That turned the movie from a realistic exploration into a silly thriller. Now the questions become too many to keep track of. Not simply, how does an affair happen and how do people live/deal with it? But, how do you clean up after a murder, what do you do with the body, how do you lie to the police, and how do you live with the crime for the rest of your life? Too much, not the central point of the movie, distracting, unreal.
Getting back to the real issue, one of my favorite moments came near the end, when Connie "flashed back" but revised in her fantasy the beginning of the affair: Instead of going up to his apartment, she managed to get a cab, and drove away, "seeing" herself make the other choice.
Pity that Lyne seems compelled to give us the hackneyed story of adultery destroying everything with its obsession. Someone needs to tell the other sides of the adultery story. But that will require a wiser hand than his.