Unfaithful (Widescreen Edition)

Unfaithful (Widescreen Edition)

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DVD Reviews of Unfaithful (Widescreen Edition)

DVD Review: Diane Lane gives Oscar winning performance
Summary: 5 Stars

Adrian Lyne borrows from the Max Färberböck directed German film Aimee and Jaguar to portray Connie's first assignation with Paul. I can truly appreciate Ms. Lane's marvelous form but it can distract the viewer from the internal conflict between her pleasure and her conscience during the liaison and her post-coital guilt and remorse on the train. Her angst is so overpowering that I don't believe I have ever seen another actress display such overwhelming sorrow as well as Diane Lane has in the famous train scene. Her performance is truly heartfelt and should win her an Oscar.

However, Adrian Lyne diminished his chances of an Oscar by borrowing from the wrong film. Instead he should have borrowed from the Thomas Crown Affair directed by Norm Jewison and starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. There is a scene in this film where the protagonist, Steve McQueen, is playing chess with his antagonist, Faye Dunaway, in what I regard as one of the most highly erotic scenes in the history of cinema. The camera switches between facial shots of the two, building into a crescendo of eroticism that is so visibly apparent on the two characters faces that you end up viewing one of the most memorable lovemaking scenes without ever seeing their bodies. Norm Jewison, in a true genius fashion, let the power of the viewers' imagination take over.

If Adrian Lyne borrowed from the Thomas Crown Affair he could have shown rapidly switching shots of Diane Lane's face in the bedroom scene and on the train. Her face tells the whole story. Eroticism is so much more powerful than sex because it intertwines one's emotional state with the physical arousal enhancing both to indescribably delirious levels. Norm Jewison understands the power of the mind but Adrian Lyne simply could not resist showing off Diane Lane's wonderful form and consequently sold her short. What Adrian Lyne does not seem to realize is that a woman's sexual essence does not come so much from her body as from her state of mind and the best way to portray that on film is to focus on her expression. Diane Lane's eyes tells volumes of her arousal, her sexuality, her womanhood and her internal conflict. Adrian Lyne really could have heightened the film's sexual tension by focusing less on Diane's physical attributes-and he didn't.

A case in point-In the Restaurant bathroom scene Adrian Lyne could have shot just above the bathroom partition. We all know what is happening. We don't need to be spoon fed. Alfred Hitchcock was the great master of the mind. His films were so great because he stimulated our imagination and led us to draw our own conclusions. I would have deliberately waited until the very last scene in the hallway outside Paul's Apartment before I showed Connie engaged with her paramour. I would have done this because Paul gets his punishment just moments later and thus it reinforces the consequences of sin and betrayal. But more importantly it would have had the viewers' attention focused more on Diane Lane's quintessential acting rather than on her magnificent body.

Switching to the murder Scene-You have to believe that Connie giving away the personal gift of the music box with the crystal globe is what pushes Edward Sumner (Richard Gere) over the edge. In the scene with Paul in Paul's pied à terre Edward is barely coping with Connie's assignations, but her giving away the gift symbolizing the couple's marital bond is the coup de grâce. Of course, it is latter in the film when we realize the true meaning of the gift and that she insouciantly gave it away as if she were discarding broken egg shells into the garbage. Instead it was her marriage which she shattered then tossed without a moment's thought.

Connie's betrayal of Edward and Edward's murder of Paul reduces their marriage to a lugubrious melancholy. There is a scene near the end of the film showing Connie dancing with her son Charlie with a morose expression on her face and her body as limp as a dish rag, shuffling aimlessly, as if she is just going through the motions of life without really experiencing it. In the end nothing Connie and Edward do seems to matter. Things have come full circle. The perpetrators are now the victims and their souls have been extinguished by their most regrettable actions. Their marriage is now a bond of sorrow.

Kate Burton, as Tracy, should also get a best supporting actress Oscar because she frames the devastating consequences of an affair so clearly in her luncheon with Connie and Sally at the corner restaurant. What some people don't seem to realize is that ultimately the affair harms the perpetrator as much as the spouse. Tracy has carried with her the almost unbearable burden of her guilt for a good part of her adult life and her misery and self loathing are painfully evident. The grief shown on Kate Burton's face and the regret she has for betraying herself as well as her husband are quite poignant thus earning her a most deserved Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.

Description of Unfaithful (Widescreen Edition)