Z/Web

Director: Adrian Lyne

Terrific, fascinating film. I love films that take a very simple plot and spin a lot story out of it. That’s what Hitchcock did so well. It’s so much interesting than these modern films that have a super plot and four or five subplots and two or three twist endings. Here we’ve got a happily married suburban housewife with an eight-year-old child. Suddenly she meets a guy, he’s French, exotic, young, charming, and she’s having an affair with him. Diane Lane is amazing: not only is she beautiful, but she’s beautiful while being older, and she’s an incredible actress. Somehow, despite what she’s doing, despite lying to her husband and son and friends, she still comes across as sympathetic. That’s because we can see the guilt on her face even as she succumbs to temptation again and again. She knows what she’s doing is wrong, and hates herself for it, but she keeps on doing it. That’s very powerful to watch. While the first half of the film focuses on the woman and her affair, the second half focuses on the husband and his reaction. I liked that a great deal because we got to see both sides. Richard Gere is cast somewhat against type as a regular family man (he usually would be playing the guy having the affair) and he’s surprisingly good. In the end, the film turns dark as a murder is committed, and suddenly the fate of this couple is out of their hands. A beautiful, complex film. The sequence with Diane Lane on the train, remembering her affair, is worth the price of admission alone.

Oddly uninteresting special effect action flick about an earth dominated by fire-breathing dragons who’ve destroyed 99% of the world’s population. What bothered me the most is that with this kind of special effect vehicle what we want to see are the dragons, and we don’t. Well, we catch glimpses, but there’s little except for fire that shows us how powerful they are. But it’s not convincing — we don’t really believe that even nuclear weapons couldn’t even stop them. Ridiculous. At the film’s climax we’re finally face-to-face with a dragon, but that’s way too late. Lame. It’s actually not that badly written or acted, it’s just not compelling. The dragons just aren’t enough of the film. Since they’re supposed to be the main villains, it’s dumb not to show them.