Unfaithful (2002)

16 Mar 2023

Rating: 2.5/5

Yet another movie I watched at too young an age because my mom rented it. Only rewatching for a podcast

Adrien Lynne is king of the Reaganite erotic thriller, where the nuclear family is threatened by the freewheeling love of bygone days — although I can’t speak for last year’s Deep Water

Interesting questions like “why do people cheat?” are at best answered by indecent proposals, and are more often crimes of opportunity that always end poorly — morality tales that follow they’re own logic to their ruinous conclusions, however crooked that logic may be

Diane Lane does a great job as someone who didn’t know what she got herself into and can’t help but be swept up in it. Of course she says “no” repeatedly throughout the seduction, but as we all know, a woman’s “no” in these movies is just her way of asking for it

As mostly mom pornography, it doesn’t really have to do anything novel, but for me it’s predictable enough— at least at first — that it just means waiting to see how things “end disastrously”, as Kate Burton says

And that ending is possible… like 85 minutes in? But then the movie drags another 40 minutes out of its ass, and it gets so sloppy for the sake of “oh no” moments that I laughed

I don’t hate the actual ending as much as some people do, but I get why people hate it

Stray Thoughts * Seeing the kid from Malcom in the Middle in this is like seeing the kid from Lizzie McGuire in The Cell — hilarious and jarring


See Review on Letterboxd