Movie Review: Unfaithful

Unfaithful

In Unfaithful, Edward Sumner (Richard Gere) is a businessman with a beautiful wife named Constance (Diane Lane), a young son (Erik per Sullivan), and a nice home in the suburbs. They seem a loving couple, occupied in his case with running a successful business and in hers with a variety of volunteer activities, with both also playing the part of loving, involved parents. And then one day, when Constance is in the city to track down more donors for a charity auction she’s working on, she runs into a man on the street who draws her to him like a moth to a flame. Though she fights it briefly, Constance falls into a torrid affair with the man, a French book seller.

How does the affair begin? How does the affair carry on? How - and when - does her husband find out? What will he do - and how will it affect them and their marriage - when he does? The larger part of the movie deals with the asking and answering of these questions. Unfaithful has been billed as a suspense thriller, and has been compared (in the movie’s advertising campaign, at least) to Fatal Attraction. In fact, the two movies do share the same director as well as an affair by a married partner central to the plot. They share little else. Although there are numerous points where tension could easily be built and suspense carried to its utmost, the script shies away. No matter what happens in this movie, there’s little or no build-up, and even the supposed apex of a crisis is done and overwith so quickly that there’s not much drama to be found there, either.

Richard Gere gives an interesting performance as a man both emotionally devastated and filled with rage by a cheating wife, a departure from his frequent happier roles. Erik per Sullivan (you may know him better as “Dewey” on the TV show Malcom in the Middle) is a joy to watch, simply radiating the boundless energy of a typical little boy. But it is Diane Lane who gives the break-out performance here. She’s by turns guilt stricken and ecstatic, sometimes from moment to moment, and her emotions play like a slide show across her face. She never over-acts her part, but never the less gives an extraordinarily powerful and very credible performance as a woman who knows what she’s doing is wrong, but can’t help doing it anyway.

Family Suitability: “Unfaithful” is rated R, primarily for some fairly graphic sex scenes. Though there is little nudity involved, some passionionate scenes are hot enough to scorch the screen. This is not a movie for children or even teenagers, and I’d stick with the recommendation of the R rating: No one under 17.