Reviewed 04 Oct 2002   UNFAITHFUL gets off to an exceedingly slow start.   So slow, in fact, that we, the audience begin to fidget in our seats and ask ourselves why.   And then it dawns on us - Director Adrian Lyne wants to build up all this fornication-for-pleasure by the wife, Connie Sumner (Diane Lane) to be much more meaningful than, say, just spur-of-the-moment sport-rutting.   We are meant to know that this is a sort-of one-off relationship, and therefore sort-of 'understandable', and then in turn, sort-of 'OK'.
        And just in case we still harbor any lingering suspicions that the unfaithful wife Connie is a common, open-slather trollop, we needn't worry, because every 15 minutes throughout the movie, she says, "I shouldn't be doing this."   See, this lets us know that not only is she a thinking person, but she is really trying to do the right thing; she's not just some 20-dollar street-corner 'whooer'.   But even then, there were some of us that had our doubts, so Director Lyne made sure we saw what a super, loving Mom she was - anyone that caring couldn't really be a wanton, home-wrecking nympho, now, could she?
       Cuckolded husband, Edward (Richard Gere) can't really be blamed for what happened because he had had two quick nips of ice cold vodka.    And even though that's the way he usually drinks vodka, he had a dizzy spell.    And we all know that a person with a couple gulps of vodka under his belt can't be held accountable for anything, including murder.   Besides, so what if he did commit murder?    Aside from the fact that he was totally out of it with blurry-visioned drunkenness, he had been deeply, deeply wronged.  After all, hadn't the victim, Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez) been ploughing his wife like the sharecropper's mule?   This, if anything, was justifiable homicide AND "temporary insanity".    Surely, the audience can see that...
        Let's see if we can figure out UNFAITHFUL's 'ambiguous' ending all by ourselves...   The police haven't found out what really happened.   After a tearful 'understanding', Connie and Edward are sitting in their car at a 'crossroad' (get it?) waiting for the light to change.    Are they going to sell their multimillion dollar home in up-state New York and start over again in Acapulco. or are they going to place their 10 year-old son in a foster home, turn themselves in, and spend the rest of their lives in jail?    Hmmmm, let me think..  Given the moral fortitude of the couple in question, this just might be Hollywood's biggest no-brainer ever.
       LEAST Enduring Line Or Phrase:   "I shouldn't be doing this."

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