OT: "Unfaithful" asks, "What if you're Richard Gere and your wife is cheating?"

[Atlanta Skins Fan]

Just saw the movie "Unfaithful" tonight. This is directed by Adriane Lyne, the same guy who brought us "Fatal Attraction". This time he's transgendered the roles (it's the wife who's unfaithful) and backed away from the cartoonish psycho-drama (no knife-wielding Glenn Close type). As a result, the movie is more realistic, less entertaining, and more unnerving in some ways.

Plot summary: Richard Gere is the perfect suburban husband and dad, working on his 11th year of marriage to Diane Lane. The main problem is a classic case of upper middle class suburban boredom -- apparently even Richard Gere can't make Lane lust for his bad boy after 11 years of marriage. Lane is a good wife and mother, not looking for trouble, but trouble finds her when she (literally) bumps into a young French hunk in SoHo, causing a spill that skins her knees. Cut to hunky-boy's apartment, where he's offered her use of a bathroom to clean herself up, and we see that the hunk isn't just rakishly good looking and charming -- he's a rare book dealer who offers Lane a book laced with a classic carpe deum come on, "Be happy for this moment: This moment is your life."

Two more trips to SoHo on Metro North (Lane and Gere live an hour north in White Plains), and finally Lane and hunky-boy are bumping uglies. Lane gives a terrific performance, moving from resistance to full-blooded I-want-your-bad-boy-now carnal bliss.

Gere picks up little signs that there's trouble in paradise. He notices that Lane is physically more distant from him. He catches Lane in odd lies about her daily itineraries. He can't seem to make a lunch date with her, even when he presses. So he hires a private detective, and soon enough he's thumbing through G-rated glossies of his worst nightmare -- Lane romping around SoHo with hunky-boy.

So Gere visits hunky-boy's SoHo apartment. When he arrives, it doesn't even seem like he's decided what he's going to do. He confronts hunky-boy, and actually gains entry to hunky boy's apartment after a brief low-key confrontation at the door. He is morbidly curious: how did they meet? What did they do together? As more details accumulate, and as Gere drinks more vodka, his head begins to spin.

SPOILER ALERT -- SPOILER ALERT -- READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HATE HEARING KEY PLOT TWISTS AND YOU EXPECT TO SEE THIS MOVIE

So Gear starts losing it. He looks like he's going to faint or puke or both. He's holding a little glass globe with a snow scene inside, and without warning he smashes hunky-boy twice over the head with it. Blood runs, hunky-boy drops -- he's dead.

The rest of the film involves Gere's semi-successful attempts to cover up the murder, and Lane's eventual awareness of the murder and the fact that Gere did the deed. Meanwhile, the police are asking both of them questions. Lane finally accepts the murder and decides to stay with Gere (which is as much a statement about retaining the rest of her life as it is retaining Gere). Gere mulls turning himself in, but sobers up and realizes he can probably get away clean. The movie ends with the two of them romanticizing about running off to Mexico while their SUV is stopped in front of their police station -- a way of showing that the investigation and their guilt over the deed is likely to linger forever over them.

The movie was kind of a downer in various ways. It showed that even a perfect husband will never be enough for the wife -- she'll still ache for young new c0ck, whether or not she acts on that ache. (This lesson can work both ways, undermining the attempts of "perfect" wives to keep their husbands faithful.) It showed that affairs can lead to truly kick-butt sex, but that suspicion of affairs will definitely undermine a marriage, even if the affair is not discovered. And when the affair is discovered -- ka-blammo: there goes your life.

This movie went for the melodramatic, with Gere actually killing hunky-boy (albeit only on impulse, not premeditation). You might not make that choice, but the movie did beg the question -- okay, what's a guy like Gere to do, when he discovers the affair? What's troubling about this movie is that it doesn't offer easy targets for blame -- there's really nothing wrong with the marriage, and nothing wrong with Gere or Lane. So you can't look at the situation and say, "Gee, if Gere would just stop drinking, or traveling so much, or being so irresponsible with money, or if Gere would pay attention to his wife more ... then everything would be okay." There's really nothing to fix here. And with a young kid in school, it's not like the two of them can just have a big confrontation scene and walk away from each other forever.

In a revised flashback to Lane's meeting with hunky-boy, the movie suggests that she should have "just said no". Lane replays this scene in her mind near the end, and you see her realizing how easy it would have been for all of this never to have happened. Certainly most people have opportunities for infidelities that they resist. But they are giving up a big part of themselves in doing so -- Lane is never again going to have a sex life like she did with hunky-boy. The movie makes the case that this is the necessary sacrifice for a stable, happy life -- especially a family life. But the case is emotionally ambivalent. Lane's life in White Plains is pleasant and stable, but also shallow and repetitive. Must she foreswear feeling life -- and sex -- with the intensity she knows is within her?

What about Gere? What's a guy like him to do when he discovers a long-running affair? The damage is done: he can never look at his wife the same way again, and sex in particular will probably be undermined forever. They've got a child, so walking away is problematic. So is trying to "improve" himself and his marriage -- there's really nothing wrong with himself or his marriage, except that it's no longer fresh and new. So: what should Gere do when he discovers the affair?

(I'm curious if anyone has suggestions -- I can't think of a satisfactory answer.)

[Brave]

Diane Lane is pretty yummy.

I've heard the love scenes in this film are frequent and intense. Seems Lane's fellow actors or assistants (can't quite remember who) bought her a "Porn Star" T-Shirt while in the midst of filming them.

[Terry]

.So: what should Gere do when he discovers the affair?

Well, the whole plot seems to be totally contrived and mis-cast to me, as well as being formulaic. But, if there is a movie way of working it out, I'd say that the way Cruise and Kidman dealt with it in Eyes Wide Shut (minus Cruise's trip though Kubrickville ) seems to be the most reasonable.

But it's hard to imagine any serious relationship overcoming that kind of betrayal of trust.

[Henry]

Ok, I haven't seen this movie yet, so I going only on what you've discussed in your post ... but since you asked ...

This is Hollywood again not understanding the simplist aspects of a successful marriage. There is OBVIOUSLY something wrong with a marriage if the wife's solution to overcoming her bland married life is to inadvertantly hop into bed with the first hunk that shows interest.

As soon as she realized she was attracted to this guy, and might actually do something with him, she should have gone to her husband and talked to him. Not to say "I want to boff some guy I met on the street" exactly, but to say she has recently been feeling unfulfilled, and lets you and I honey do something new and fun with eachother to bring some spice back into the marriage. That may not have worked, but she should have at least TRIED communicating with her husband first. Throwing caution to the wind and hopping in the sack at first lust is a huge red flag.

With Gere's case, again the problem is not between him and this suave French guy, it's between him and his wife. He needs to talk to HER about why she's cheating. We all KNOW why the guy's doing it. If Gere is willing to try and salvage his marriage with this woman, he needs to find out what she's missing being with him. Personally, I don't know if I could forgive my wife if she did something like that. I may just tell her I found out, and I took the liberty of packing her some things so she can get the hell out of my house. But the one thing I wouldn't bother doing is try to meet the other man because, well, I just might crack his skull, and I wouldnt want to go to jail for him.

There is a severe lack of communication is this marriage, and that's a big problem. This couple does not have a healthy relationship.

That's just my opinion.