Unfaithful

One may quickly have misgivings on seeing that the director Adrian Lyne has made a film entitled Unfaithful, starring the hunk Olivier Martinez, the beautiful Diane Lane and the ageing sex symbol Richard Gere. For Lyne has previously directed glossy erotic films such as "9½ Weeks" and "Fatal Attraction". Unfaithful, however, does not have much in common with those films, for it is actually a sober and fairly restrained psychological drama about infidelity and - in this case - its rather drastic consequences. Olivier Martinez may well be a stereotypical French lover, but both Diane Lane and Richard Gere are very convincing as the married couple.

Edward Sumner has his own company, and the family is so well off that his wife Connie can stay at home looking after their son Charlie and the house and involve herself in charity work. Edward and Connie are fond of each other, so perhaps it is out of boredom that Connie reluctantly embarks on an affair with a younger Frenchman, Paul Martel, whom she meets by chance.

Unfaithful shows how infidelity slowly undermines the relationship, until it finally drives the husband so far into jealousy that he commits a terrible act that will forever scar the little family. The final image suggests that even though the couple want to make a fresh start, it is impossible for them to forget. The grim and crushing ending clearly bears the mark of the screenplay being based on a film by Claude Chabrol. American remakes are rarely as successful as this one.