Mihai Toma
An apparently happy and complete family with a child is about to face its biggest challenge yet when the mother stumbles upon a charming stranger to whom she is attracted. Slowly, their relationship begins to dangerously evolve, obviously pleasure-wise, while the husband becomes more and more suspicious. Their whole marriage will be put to the test multiple times but will it actually hold up, regardless of the infidelity?It's a movie which, as its title suggests, presents an unfaithful wife which falls for a complete stranger while her family is increasingly neglected. The plot is pretty straightforward, with a brief presentation of the family, then suddenly moves to the cheating part, presented with great detail and sensuality. It keeps it this way until about half of its length, when it changes the course of events with a very unexpected twist, which alters the course of events dramatically, bringing much amazement, but not in a good way. From there, everything becomes a true torture for the characters, but also for the viewer, which is forced to watch their destroyed lives struggle more and more until the moment when everything is revealed.I have to tell that while I liked the first half, although it has a pretty inexplicable intrigue, but the second one was completely wrong on so many levels. From the moment of the twist, which is as wow as it is mind boggling, everything falls to pieces, both in terms of story and viewer likeness. The characters tend to undertake a series of head-scratching decision, which ultimately leads to a very unsatisfying finale which doesn't bring anything good. It leaves everything sort of hanging, allowing the viewer to imagine the actual ending, fact which I dislike. The characters, while well described and developed, tend to do inexplicable actions which alter the course of events, the biggest one being the one from the intrigue. From the little that was presented in the beginning, the wife had absolutely no reason to betray her husband, who seemed determined to do anything for their family. Add to the equation the event from the twist and you end up with a spoiled plot which apparently doesn't lead anywhere and seems to have no consequences whatsoever. It became boring and predictable, facts which are unacceptable in this type of movie.Overall, I consider this film a missed opportunity. It presents an interesting idea with which its starts and which it develops, but it manages to spoil everything with a couple of stupid decisions which, to make it even worse, do not bring any consequences. It had good actors and sensual moments which made the first part quite enjoyable, but the second one was almost unbearable, making it a below-average movie which can be easily skipped.
bjarias
Go search 'The Unfaithful Wife' (1969) and read the plot summary.. except for a couple of changes, the plot-line is pretty much identical. After all there are only so many story lines, and they must get repeated over and again. This 2002 version does it pretty well (have not yet viewed the '69 film). Of course, it would have been more realistic for Gere's character to have immediately come clean, but the story had to continue on for another few drawn out scenes. The one character in the film that just did not fit in was the kid. Just could not come to grips with the genetics of a Lane and Gere winding up there. And the ending is a cop-out... they should have had it go one way or the other.
Irishchatter
I thought Diane Lane looked absolutely sexy at playing as a middle aged mum. The sex scene's were really beautiful and romantic like I say anyone could agree with me on this? Also Olivier Martinez looked very handsome too, I say a lot of young girls back in 2002 definitely wanted him badly after watching this film cause I suppose he was good looking then haha! This is only my guess now, I'm not really into him. I actually was really sad that his character got killed and they didn't put Richard Gere's character into jail in the end. That was kinda disappointing for me since this is a 2 hour film at the end of the day! That's why I wouldn't give this an Oscar. They should instead just have a few nominations and then, it would make this totally reasonable! The actors were good but I wouldn't go mental with the storyline to be honest....
