Unfaithful

Is there a more annoying director working these days than Adrian Lyne? Not gifted enough to qualify as an auteur, yet not incompetent enough to be dismissed as a complete hack, Lyne insists on squandering his manifest talents on projects that are pretentious, tawdry, and boring, in that order. He is much more infatuated with their high concept ideas than anyone in the audience is likely to be. “Unfaithful” finds Lyne mired in the eighties. Does he really think that in 2002 we are going to be mesmerized by the spectacle of a woman having an affair? That kind of thing may have titillated audiences back when Lyne’s “Fatal Attraction” (1987) became the talk of the town, but it is small potatoes at a time when Oval Office sexcapades are the media’s daily bread. In the current movie, Constance (Diane Lane) (and by the way, does anyone really find the irony of that name clever?), the world’s best-looking mother of an eight-year old, is married to the world’s best looking 40-something husband, Edward (Richard Gere). They live in a lovely house, and would seem to have the perfect life.

Then, in an episode that could be described as ludicrous if it weren’t so embarrassing (Connie is apparently such a klutz that she has trouble walking in bad weather) a huge windstorm literally blows her into the arms of one Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez), the world’s best looking used book dealer. So far, so dull, right? (Remember, it has taken the picture about an hour to get this far.) Against her better judgment, Connie proceeds with her affair, and then, wracked with guilt, stops the picture dead in its already staggering tracks with her inner conflict. Meanwhile, Edward glowers and struggles vainly to conceal his dismay at his wife’s sudden distraction. All of this heavy breathing is followed by an event of such stunningly contrived melodrama that it seems to have been plucked from some other movie. While this “big moment” does give “Unfaithful” a much-needed shot of energy, it is too little too late. The picture ends shortly thereafter, on an ambiguous note which worked well in the far superior “In the Bedroom” but falls flat on its somnolent face here.

It appears that writers Alvin Sargent and William Broyles, Jr., along with our director, have mistaken dreary examination of timeworn themes and excruciatingly slow pacing for a profound analysis of human nature. (Lyne should have spent as much loving attention on the plot and the characters as he did on the pretty but empty shots of doors and bicycles and weathervanes and rain and… well, you get the idea.) Unfortunately, they never seem to have more in their heads than the notion that audiences would like to see Diane Lane rolling around half naked (well, OK, I’ll give them that). Filmmakers are welcome to use their movies to explore moral themes, and I would not judge a movie on the basis of its moral perspective (not that “Unfaithful” actually seems to have one). But do they have to be so deadly dull while they are at it? Adultery—hey, you can be for it or against it, but for God’s sake please don’t bore me to tears while you make up your mind. (5/18/2002)