bnorthup
05-12-2002, 11:46 PM
Unfaithful (R)
At the Gaslight
3.5 stars
So long as we both shall live
By Brent Northup
Here’s a recipe for disaster: First, you take a pompous actor who struts his way through most films and put him in a movie directed by someone who prefers his movies steamy and shallow. Next, pass out scripts which tell a “country-music kinda tale” of a jealous husband gettin’ even with a cheating wife. Finally, add a whole bunch of gratuitous sex – in elevators, in restrooms, in hallways.
And when you mix these hopeless ingredients all together, what do you get? A startlingly good movie, that’s what you get. I just sat there in disbelief as it ended. I even clapped.
Believe it or not, Richard Gere and Adrian Lyne have made a very fine movie, one with a distinctly European sensibility.
“Unfaithful” manages to be thought-provoking and substantive, even while being relentlessly erotic. European films have known how to mix sex and sensibility for decades, but it’s seldom so in the Colonies.
So what’s different about this that lifts it above other tales of infidels? For starters, “Unfaithful” flip-flops the gender roles. The husband is the loyal, impotent one. The wife is the one who strays. Better yet, Richard Gere, who has two of the most wandering eyes in current cinema, loves only his wife. Yup, Richard Gere keeps his vows. Stunning. What’s more he’s reasonably ordinary – rich, but ordinary.
The next pleasant surprise is the way “Unfaithful” handles the unavoidable issue of the price of infidelity. There is real suffering in this movie, for virtually everyone who is even remotely tied to this betrayal. Guilt seeps into everyone’s soul. The scenes where the husband becomes suspicious just as the wife’s guilt overruns her heart are gripping. Cheating isn’t romanticized or acquitted here – it’s indicted and convicted.
Finally, there’s the bittersweet ending that is so much the better for being oblique. The final shot of a car parked in front of a green light next to a police station is a classic movie moment. Absolutely perfectly conceived and crafted.
Even the acting is fine. Richard Gere has never been better. Diane Lane will likely be nominated for Best Actress for her work here.
As for the directing, well it’s fair to say that Adrian Lyne has made a fine film – even though he quite obviously still met his quota of sex scenes. (His R-rated movies often seem as though they were pressing the borders of “X” or “NC.”) In this case, he managed to find a script where the sex seems mostly justified by the content of the story.
Be careful, however, not to read this review as touting a “masterpiece.” It’s not. It’s just a good film made all the more remarkable because it had every probability of being awful. It’s still rather closely tied to novels you find at airport bookstands, of course.
But who’s to say soap opera can’t, on occasion rise to the level of art? It surely does this time.
END
At the Gaslight
3.5 stars
So long as we both shall live
By Brent Northup
Here’s a recipe for disaster: First, you take a pompous actor who struts his way through most films and put him in a movie directed by someone who prefers his movies steamy and shallow. Next, pass out scripts which tell a “country-music kinda tale” of a jealous husband gettin’ even with a cheating wife. Finally, add a whole bunch of gratuitous sex – in elevators, in restrooms, in hallways.
And when you mix these hopeless ingredients all together, what do you get? A startlingly good movie, that’s what you get. I just sat there in disbelief as it ended. I even clapped.
Believe it or not, Richard Gere and Adrian Lyne have made a very fine movie, one with a distinctly European sensibility.
“Unfaithful” manages to be thought-provoking and substantive, even while being relentlessly erotic. European films have known how to mix sex and sensibility for decades, but it’s seldom so in the Colonies.
So what’s different about this that lifts it above other tales of infidels? For starters, “Unfaithful” flip-flops the gender roles. The husband is the loyal, impotent one. The wife is the one who strays. Better yet, Richard Gere, who has two of the most wandering eyes in current cinema, loves only his wife. Yup, Richard Gere keeps his vows. Stunning. What’s more he’s reasonably ordinary – rich, but ordinary.
The next pleasant surprise is the way “Unfaithful” handles the unavoidable issue of the price of infidelity. There is real suffering in this movie, for virtually everyone who is even remotely tied to this betrayal. Guilt seeps into everyone’s soul. The scenes where the husband becomes suspicious just as the wife’s guilt overruns her heart are gripping. Cheating isn’t romanticized or acquitted here – it’s indicted and convicted.
Finally, there’s the bittersweet ending that is so much the better for being oblique. The final shot of a car parked in front of a green light next to a police station is a classic movie moment. Absolutely perfectly conceived and crafted.
Even the acting is fine. Richard Gere has never been better. Diane Lane will likely be nominated for Best Actress for her work here.
As for the directing, well it’s fair to say that Adrian Lyne has made a fine film – even though he quite obviously still met his quota of sex scenes. (His R-rated movies often seem as though they were pressing the borders of “X” or “NC.”) In this case, he managed to find a script where the sex seems mostly justified by the content of the story.
Be careful, however, not to read this review as touting a “masterpiece.” It’s not. It’s just a good film made all the more remarkable because it had every probability of being awful. It’s still rather closely tied to novels you find at airport bookstands, of course.
But who’s to say soap opera can’t, on occasion rise to the level of art? It surely does this time.
END