UNFAITHFUL

By: Abbie Bernstein
Review Date: Friday, May 10, 2002

Director Adrian Lyne has made some fairly overwrought movies about sexual passion and its consequences these include FATAL ATTRACTION, NINE ½ WEEKS, INDECENT PROPOSAL and the remake of LOLITA so a movie entitled UNFAITHFUL suggests something along similar lines. However, Lyne's newest work turns out to have a welcome sense of dramatic restraint that creates an intriguing dynamic within the broad strokes of the sexual thriller format.

Connie (Diane Lane) and Edward Sumner (Richard Gere) would seem to have a near-perfect life. They are happy in their marriage, Edward owns a financially successful business that allows them to live in a huge house in the countryside he drives to his office in Manhattan they have a cheerful eight-year-old son named Charlie (Erik Per Sullivan) and even a dog. Then, one blustery day in Soho, Connie is out shopping and gets caught in a windstorm so severe she's blown to the ground. Handsome stranger Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez) comes to Connie's rescue, inviting her up to his apartment for some first aid on her scraped knees. Paul is seductive, but Connie politely declines his overtures. However, the temptation is so strong that, days later, she returns and embarks on an affair that, well, blows her away. (In a sequence that recalls DON'T LOOK NOW, Connie compulsively flashes back to highlights of the first tryst, turned on all the way home on her commuter train ride.) There's no intention of long-term commitment on either side Connie believes if she can keep the liaison secret, the passion will eventually burn out without anybody learning of it and without harm to her marriage. She doesn't reckon with the fact that the affair is having a noticeable effect on her nor with how hard it is to be discreet in a small world.

Even though

UNFAITHFUL eventually takes a turn into lethal violence at about the halfway mark, it never amps up into either slasher territory or soap opera histrionics. The characters except for the unencumbered Paul have realistic difficulty in finding the nerve to even try to express themselves, let alone actually talking to each other. This may be why everybody goes off the rails so completely in the non-verbal areas physical expression is a revelation to them, even if what they discover doesn't make them happy. The screenplay by Alvin Sargent and William Broyles Jr., loosely adapted from Claude Chabrol's 1968 film LA FEMME INFIDELE, has a bit of snappy dialogue, but trusts in ordinary speech and, even more, in uncomfortable silences to communicate with the audience.

Gere is an excellent choice as Edward, full of confident charm that plays into the character's shock at the turn of events. It's not just that he's hurt and outraged he's not the kind of man who's supposed to be prepared for a straying spouse. He also puts across wordless, motionless fury very effectively. Martinez is suitably alluring and mysterious while conveying the sense that Paul has a life outside of his encounters with Connie. Still, UNFAITHFUL turns out to be primarily Lane's movie, which she carries with empathy-generating flair. Connie seems both the epitome of a smile-masked, well-kept suburban matron and a vital individual who has gone without examining herself for so long that she's overwhelmed when she finds something that feels good.

UNFAITHFUL isn't a definitive look at desire, jealousy or adultery, but it has some astute observations about human nature and an appealingly quiet style, along with an ending that is refreshing in its ambiguity. It also manages to be reasonably sexy without becoming silly, something not always achieved in this subgenre.