Review: Unfaithful

Now that women are cheating on Richard Gere, a door has opened for a fresher Mr. Goodbar.

Unfaithful
Photo: 20th Century Fox

Suburban housewife Connie Summer (Diane Lane) isn’t looking for Mr. Goodbar though it’s difficult to turn down a fuck from a bookish, pin-up French Hispanic when a magical realist windstorm all but rips her panties off. Softcore porn poet Adrian Lyne knows good sex and while Lane and Olivier Martinez put on a good show, beyond the sex lies a more existential Lyne (curiously, the food products from 9 1/2 Weeks are Unfaithful’s ice packs). The elements bring Connie and Paul together, the ominous gaze of god-like statues in a SoHo flat assuring penetration. Though his approach is predictably Gallic, Peter is less opportunistic than you might expect. His near-effortless romantic approach guarantees her return: he makes her walk through a maze of books and sculptures, guiding her with words toward a book of poems. Lyne evokes Connie’s loneliness and deceit via lyrical fades and careful product placement (here, a poster of a couple kissing at a rush-hour metro stop) when she remembers her trembling orgasm aboard a train to suburbia. Now that women are cheating on Richard Gere, a door has opened for a fresher Mr. Goodbar. Lyne contemplates newer models when he first lingers on the wrinkles of Gere’s sex appeal but, in the end, the actor fights back with evocative blood-splatter. A skipping record is Lyne’s transitional element between Connie’s comfort and fear, a forgotten garb a permission to fuck and a snow globe the haunting reminder of nature bringing and tearing lovers apart. Loyalty is egregiously referenced at the workplace yet Lyne seemingly engages Antonioni when Connie and Edward contemplate marital rootlessness and the ennui of suburbia in the film’s fantastic closing scene. No boiling rabbits this time, just a stop-go-stop-go streetlight metaphor that suggests the Summers must suffer to come back to love.

Score: 
 Cast: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Olivier Martinez, Erik Per Sullivan, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Michelle Monaghan, Chad Lowe, Erich Anderson  Director: Adrian Lyne  Screenwriter: William Broyles Jr., Alvin Sargent  Distributor: 20th Century Fox  Running Time: 124 min  Rating: R  Year: 2002  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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