00s Movie Review - Unfaithful

Director: Adrian Lyne
Genre: Drama/ Thriller/ Romance
Runtime: 124 minutes
Year: 2002
Starring: Diane Lane, Richard Gere, Olivier Martinez, Michelle Monaghan, Chad Lowe

Description: A New York suburban couple’s (Richard Gere, Diane Lane) goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an adulterous fling.

Review: Edward Sumner and his wife Connie lead an exemplary life consisting of a good marriage, a beautiful house in one of the suburbs of New York and son Charlie.
When Connie bumps into a handsome Frenchman during a major windstorm while attempting to find a cab, her life changes abruptly. The man, Paul Martel, invites her to his apartment to treat her scraped knees after a fall. She becomes completely intrigued by Paul. At first she tries to resist the feelings but eventually she falls for the stranger. She invents all kinds of excuses to meet him. The inevitable happens: together they end up in a passionate affair. Eventually the deception takes its toll when Edward discovers what is going on, based on his feelings and little lies from Connie.
Director Adrian Lyne previously made high-profile films as “Fatal Attraction”, Indecent Proposal” and “9 ½ Weeks”. Despire the fact that these films may not the artistic masterpieces, they still managed to achieve reasonable commercial success. Partly due to the lack of innovation, this movie is not nearly as good as the aforementioned movies. The theme of the adulterous man or woman and the consequences for the environment does much less nowadays. The film never really wants to take on serious thriller-like forms and “Unfaithful” cannot be called excitingly erotic either. Therefore, the film, especially the first part of the film, ripples along a bit. The of the film eventually makes up for some of this.  
Richard Gere gives a reasonable performance as Edward, but Diane Lane is particularly convincing.  
“Unfaithful” is not a movie that I would rewatch, but it’s also not a terrible film. The length of the film doesn’t help here, it drags on a bit, especially at the start. But when the thriller elements enter the stage, the movie is a bit better and gets more exciting.

Rating: 3/ 5