I wrote this deeply passionate piece about how the movie world was on the brink of self-extinguishing and then the site URL disappeared for a week… and now, I’m in too good a mood to go back to The Movie Cold War, even though its still important and after Spider-Man’s absurd opening weekend, even more important. 

As Rosie Perez might say, words put in her mouth by Ron Shelton, sometimes when you win, you lose and sometimes when you lose, you win and sometimes when you win or lose, you tie.  My friends at Exhibitor Relations may be enthralled by the idea of the $40 million day or the $100 million weekend and others might be worried because greed does not always equal good in this business, but the reality is more complex than either point of view.  One must ask the question that always gets obscured when it’s raining money… is this success a good thing? 

The truth is, I don’t have any problem with studios making big bucks from big, image-heavy, mediocre pictures.  Hollywood is - and always has been – about business.  I don’t care how big you are, millions of dollars are still millions of dollars.  Movies are not paintings.  They weren’t painting when they made Easy Rider or The French Connection or The Godfather either.  

My issue is that I can still get a good hamburger in a few dozen different places in Los Angeles.   There may be a McDonald’s or a Burger King on every other block.  But as much as such low-end food might offend my culinary sensibilities, I can drive right by.  (As with crappy movies, about the only reason I drive through these days is to placate my nephew and niece… if only I could get them to appreciate sub-titles and Thai food!)  

However, if the fast food joints became so dominant that they kept other restaurants from getting ground beef… or if a new law was passed requiring storefronts to pay for signage and the price was so high that only McDonald’s and BK Lounge could afford them… or if Burger King realized that they had one month to sell triple the number of burgers they ever have and if they failed, they would go out of business… or if McDonald’s started serving Filet O Fish sandwiches that were made from dead fish found on the beach because it was cheaper and there just wasn’t as great a possibility of irrational profits on fish… well, you begin to get the point.  How far can the film industry go by reducing itself to a pure commodity?

But hey!!!  I’m in a good mood.  And I completely forgot that Unfaithful was opening yesterday (Wednesday).  So, two reviews and we’ll see if I’m ready to drop my treatise tomorrow.

A VA-GINE ROMANCE:  I don’t know if there is anything to discuss about Unfaithful without getting into spoilers.  And the odd thing is, I don’t know that anyone else can come up with much of a non-spoiler hook either.  Don’t jump off yet.  I’ll let you know when I’m going to start in earnest. 

I liked this movie.  I’m not 100 percent sure why.  But I do know that Adrian Lyne knows how to make a movie, however flawed some of his work has been.  The actors and sets and cities always look great and moist.  And he keeps things rolling.  He has also cast the woman I consider the sexiest actress since Ava Gardner, Diane Lane.  She’s gorgeous, smart, seems to be highly sexual and her body is round/feminine in perfect and subtle ways.  She is the lead here and while I think that A Walk on the Moon gave her a lot more of a character to act, she gives a terrific performance.  Richard Gere is also tremendous in this film.  I have never been a big Gere detractor, though occasionally he gets caught walking through a film.  (Okay, so maybe I was a detractor at one time… but his performance in Internal Affairs, a movie I didn’t really like, convinced me that he really was an actor first and a pretty boy second.)  If this were a December release, there would be serious talk about a supporting actor nomination.  He’s that good.  On the flip side, there is no indication here that Olivier Martinez will be anything more than a professional seat wetter, unless he gets fat and becomes buddies with The Farrellys, like Richard Tyson.  He’s not bad, but he doesn’t show much more than his top card.  Lane and Gere get you a good way along the road you want to go down.  And ultimately, the film is ambiguous enough to maintain your attention… even if it never pays off.

Okay, I’m done dancing.  Here’s you shortcut to Page Two and the About A Boy review, if you don’t want to know anymore. 

Have they all left the room?

Are you sure?

Okay… here’s the thing.  The movie should be called Fatal Attraction 2: Revenge of the Inflamed Labia.  The problem I have with the movie, when I actually think about it - which is never encouraged by the film – is that the only good guy in the film is the husband who murders the man his wife is fucking.  And I use the word “fucking” because that’s all it really is. 

Isn’t it ironic that the woman in Fatal Attraction (Alex… irony central calling… they should have named the guy in this ambi-sexually as well) was actually attractive to the wayward husband for more than her looks.  Glenn Close is very sexy in that movie, but she’s not a supermodel.  But Olivier Martinez, in Unfaithful, is as simpleminded a piece of male ass as any girl spending time on the Howard Stern show.  He is like a really beautiful stripper who makes you think that she is really thinking something good by using her eyes to seduce her customers… but like Mr. Martinez’ character, she always knows that it’s just business.  This guy is a sexual schoolyard bully.  He is a man who knows that one look can leave a g-string dripping wet and uses the power with regard to no one but himself.  And huzzah to women for being able to objectify men as we have always objectified them.  But the power of Martinez’ not-hard-to-figure persuasion seems to be a part of Lyne’s overall goal of keeping things ambiguous.  The problem is this, however… not knowing why Lane’s character decides not only to start to mingle fluids with Olivier’s, but to continue an ongoing affair with the guy, means that the affair section of the movie goes nowhere fast.  And that’s the first two-thirds of the film.

Does she just have an itch that needs scratching, even though her very attractive husband is still clearly interested in her sexually… and not just the missionary position in bed?  Okay.  I’ll buy that.  But that’s not in this movie. 

Does this stud boy giving her the variety her wild youth left her craving after years of marriage, so much so that she still honestly utters, “I want you to fuck me!” as stud boy mounts her from behind in his apartment building hallway while she’s trying to tell him that it’s over?  Okay.  I’ll buy that.  But that’s not in this movie.

Does she really fall in love with another man, but remains torn by her loyalty to her husband and child?  Okay.  I’ll buy that.  But… you know.

The first two acts of this movie are little more than an elongated episode of Red Show Diaries.  And, as lovely as it is to linger on warm shots of Ms. Lane – even better for me than Lyne’s previous pin-ups, Demi Moore and Kim Basinger – it’s all just engine revving until the murder.  The murder itself, functionally, points up what is wrong with this story.  Gere’s character kills the French Fellatiate with a snow globe that he bought his wife, who collects globes.  Why in God’s name would a woman who didn’t want to be caught give away a part of her snow globe collection and, more pointedly, a globe that her husband bought her?  The answer must be that she wanted to be caught.  But it’s not in this movie. 

I didn’t mind the much-discussed ambiguous ending, with the family car idling in front of the police station.  At least not in concept.  But in execution, it seems to be trying to hard.  Nonetheless, the idea that Gere is considering turning himself in for a murder he seems to have gotten away with once again takes us to the central problem with Unfaithful.  Gere’s character is the only person with any honor in the entire film.  I certainly understand that cold, factual reasons for an affair are often hard to find.  I don’t need the film’s morality spoon-fed to me.  But with a husband who is attentive… who finds time for the wife and the family… who wants to make love every time they have a moment alone… it’s tough to make an excuse for this woman’s urge for this affair, especially when she shows no real remorse, cutting it off only when she realizes that she’ll eventually get caught.  The guy she’s banging is a pig… a beautiful pig, but an absolute pig.  (I admit it.  I consider cheating a weak, cowardly act.  If you want out, tell your partner and get out.  Don’t betray your lover’s trust and don’t create distance with an affair as a way of forcing confrontation without taking responsibility.  This has been a public service message.  Thank you.) 

Think about it.  When you are in the midst of a troubled relationship, there are no clear answers.  But a few years later, it all seems so obvious.  You may not know the “why” when you are taking action.  But there is always a “why.”  Always.  And if the why doesn’t drive the story, we are spending too much time watching the set-up, which in this case, is the affair itself. 

Still and all, in the end, I did enjoy the film.  I wasn’t bored.  It moved along.  But I just kept thinking, “What am I supposed to have mixed feelings about here?”  There is no moral ambiguity because there is no morality, there is no ideal that is either lived up to or broken.  Except by Gere.  And that’s too little, too late.  When he says to Lane, “I didn’t want to kill him!  I wanted to kill you!,” I just thought, “Okay with me if he kills them both.”   He can never trust her again and that guy was a piece of shit who would ruin lives wherever his erection pointed.  The husband scorned is really the only victim here… and only because his sense of honor will weigh on him, unlike his murder victim or his cheatin’ wife. 

Forced to Ebertize, it’s a marginal thumbs up, for the filmmaking and performances alone.  The pieces of the puzzle are often smart and elegant.  I’m sitting here watching Lyne, Lane and Gere on Charlie Rose and I feel good about the movie.  They seem to really like the movie and I really want them to be happy… their work on the film is a gift that I appreciate.  But in the big picture, the whole is not as great as the sum of its parts.  If you want to enjoy the film, do yourself a favor. Don’t think about it too much.

 

PAGE TWO:  “About A Boy”