Unfaithful
(2002)
review by Thera Belle

I suspect most people who review film post the reviews as soon as possible because of deadlines and the need to have reviews up ahead of other publications. That's probably why even seasoned veterans can be wrong about films and it's up to the public to set them straight. If you have the time to be a bit analytical and get over initial reactions your thoughts are much more clear, though you might not be so quick and clever and quote worthy and "two digits up, way up". I am transfixed by some films for days after and then start to take it all apart. So it is with watching Unfaithful.

I got carried away. I fell in love with Olivier Martinez. Always a mistake if you want to be able to see straight! Falling in love ruins your perspective. So I fell in love with a Spanish-Moroccan Frenchman ex-boxer with a beautiful body and more character in his face than is really necessary. So what? I'll get over it! But for a while it did mess with my mind and I thought I'd found a masterpiece of a movie. But, alas, this is not so. I've begun to see the flaws. That is not to say Unfaithful is not a good film. That is to say it is not a perfect film.

Connie Sumner seems to have the perfect life. As played by Diane Lane she is pretty, caring, a bit overwhelmed, and a bit bored with her sweet husband, Edward, her cute dog, her quirky son, Charlie, and all the errands that make up her day. Remember in Mary Poppins how a shift in the direction of the wind means Mary is on her way out? Well, the same could be said for Connie. There is a shift in the wind one day and an intensity in her life that has been missing builds and finally overwhelms her.

One of those windstorms that could blow you off your feet or out of your old life and into a new one hits New York as Connie goes into the city to shop for her son's birthday party. Oh the joys of parenting! So blame the wind for all that follows because it blows the orderly ship that is her life off course and onto the rocks that is Paul Martin, French rare book dealer and moral alley cat. She literally knocks him over on the sidewalk outside his borrowed flat and nothing can be the same. Party favors and rare books fly everywhere, lost among the trash swirling about and Connie is swept up to the cluttered but orderly home of Paul to tend to scraped knees and the sameness in her life and have a cup of tea.

This is their first meeting. He gives her a book of poetry. He charms her. He beguiles her. He charms me. He beguiles me. But enough about me. Let's get back to Connie and the obvious guilt she feels because she has lustful thoughts about this stranger. She leaves but she cannot forget Paul. She becomes preoccupied with thoughts of him. She has to visit him again. He tells a joke. Makes her bad coffee. She feels even more guilty. She goes home, second opportunity to cheat on old Edward lost. Deep sigh.

Now most women would have been too shy to go back. They'd have recognized the fact that lust on this magnitude would ruin everything. If this movie was about most women it would only have been about half an hour long. This movie is about Connie and was made by Adrian Lyne and he thought that an 18 year old steel worker and exotic dancer who wanted to be a ballerina and a 38 years old rich guy would get together at the end of Flashdance. He also boiled a bunny in Fatal Attraction, gave new meaning to a fridge as an erotic toy in 9 and ½ Weeks, and in the case of Unfaithful made me long for some Nigerian music and a French rare book dealer. Bless you Adrian Lyne for all you've done for the fantasies of women. You deserve a medal.

Connie goes back a third time. She brings muffins. Paul is at home. He is always at home. This is very odd because most men are never at home when you try to call them. They are "somewhere else". But this time and for the rest of the movie Paul is mostly at home and if he'd behaved like normal men and been out somewhere, doing god knows what, things would have turned out better.

You can't say that Paul seduces Connie. There isn't much seduction going on here, unless you count the muffins. I think Adrian Lyne is obsessed with food and drink. Anyway, Paul invites Connie to dance with him, Nigerian music, which she likes. The French always seem to like that jazzy sounding stuff. But she still thinks this is a bad idea even though she's been to his flat three times and this time has brought muffins! She starts to leave, forgets her coat, goes back for it, and her life as she knew it is over.

So lets cut to the chase. No, not a chase scene. The heart of the matter. The train scene. The one that got Diane Lane nominated for an Oscar. On the way home from her first sexual encounter with Paul Connie remembers and I don't think you have ever seen a moment like this in a movie. On the commentary you're going to learn this scene was shot in thirty minutes at the end of a very expensive sequence where the production rented a train to film for two days. I suspect it could have ended up on the cutting room floor if it wasn't so damned exquisite and painful to watch.

The minute Connie begins her affair Edward knows something is wrong. It doesn't help that she lies to him and he finds out or that she's at a restaurant with Paul and an employee of Edward's sees her. In fact that's a curious thing about Unfaithful. By all accounts New York City is huge but every time Connie turns around she's bumping into someone she knows from back home. What are the odds of that? About seven million to three. With her luck she should go to Churchill Downs and bet on win, place, and show of the Kentucky Derby and go home rich!

With the story set up you need to know that the setting is that idealized place that doesn't really exist in much of America and if it does then no wonder people have affairs and blow their brains out. Those lives are just plain on boring. No wonder Connie gets down and dirty with the delicious Paul. She hasn't had a decent meal in years!

Richard Gere as Edward is playing against type. That's fine with me. The man has never appealed to me much. I remember him from Pretty Woman and, quite frankly never understood what anybody saw in him. I've never understood what anybody saw in Pretty Woman either, but I doubt you want me to review that movie! And I tried to feel sorry for Edward. I really did. But in the end I just saw how weak the man was and was bored all over again. But you know what? Richard Gere just gets better as an actor. Go back over his career and see if he doesn't!

The rest of the cast, besides Lane, Gere, and Martinez could have just as easily phoned in their roles. I have trouble with most supporting casts in movies anyway. They just look like desperate bit players hoping they'll land a television series if they pay their dues in films they were lucky enough to be cast in. Actually, the film could have been pared down to only have scenes with the three primaries and for my money you could have gotten rid of Gere entirely and shot Lane only from the back so I would have an uninterrupted view of Martinez.

In the end it has to be said the affair goes badly. How could it not? It's not a casual thing and Connie is betraying not only her husband but her son as well. She comes off as increasingly cold and distant and it's hard to generate much sympathy for her or for Edward. By the time the film is done you're glad you're not the Sumners or anyone who knows them. Suburbia is a dangerous place, to be sure. When I saw it was rated R for sexuality, language, and a scene of violence I thought it would be a fist fight or something. It wasn't!

The extras are good. You get a full length audio commentary by Adrian Lyne, which I haven't listened to. I watched the eleven deleted scenes and there is an alternate ending but I agree with the director's choice. The alternate one is just out of character for Edward. Of course I watched the cast interviews. Olivier Martinez speaks English and everything! I watched the full screen version because of the seven copies in the store not one of them was wide screen! It's in English, French, and Spanish with English and Spanish subtitles and at 124 minutes it won't take up much of your life to watch it.

Did I like it? I liked it more Saturday morning after viewing it Friday night than I do now. But, it made me think. What would I do in Connie's pointy toed high heeled pumps? The flippant answer would be to start that affair the first time I was in Paul's flat but now I don't know. It might take me four visits and a pint of raspberry sorbet to seduce me, especially if I had the perfect but boring husband waiting at home for me.