THE RICH MAN’S WIFE

US, 1997, 98 minutes, Colour.
Halle Berry, Peter Greene, Christopher Mc Donald, Clive Owen, Clea Lewis, Frankie Faison.
Directed by Amy Holden Jones.

The Rich Man’s Wife sounds like a telemovie, a soap opera. However, it was a star vehicle for Halle Berry who was emerging during the 1990s as a star, won an Emmy for her portrayal of Dorothy Dandridge in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge in 1998 and won an Oscar for Monsters’ Ball in 2001.

She portrays the young wife of a wealthy businessman, played by Christopher Mc Donald. She is telling her story to police investigators, talking about how she really loved her husband but sometimes wanted him dead (not in reality) and is overheard by a stranger played by the sinister Peter Greene. She is also in a relationship with Clive Owen, a restaurateur. There seems to be no connection with his wife Clea Lewis.

The film unfolds, with Halle Berry telling her story and trying to be honest with the police. She talks about the plan that the Peter Greene character makes with Clive Owen, to kill the husband. He does. However, there are some leads to the heroine and she is arrested. However, with her sincerity she persuades the police and Clive Owen’s ex-wife consolidates her alibi, also explaining that she doesn’t have the brains to commit murder.

Then, in the last few moments of the film, there is a complete twist as we see that the plan has been concocted by the two women and what we have seen is a fabrication told by the rich man’s wife. Since the film came out soon after The Usual Suspects, there was some comment that it was using the same technique with a final twist revelation.

1. An enjoyable thriller, mystery, detective story? The twists?

2. The title and its tone?

3. The affluent home, the country house, the countryside? Bars, gritty sequences? The contrast? The musical score?

4. The introduction to the rich man’s wife, the interrogation by the police, her being under suspicion, her telling the story?

5. The audience, listening to and seeing the rich man’s wife’s story? The seeming holes? But the final revelation that it was a deceit, that everything was fabricated, that it was a story told by the wife, her perspective? Her linking up with the restaurateur’s ex-wife? The perspective and the lies?

6. The wife, her back-story, meeting Tony, marrying him, the prenuptial agreement, seventeen years of age, seven years of marriage? His moods, his women, the drinking, the violence? Her being patient? The seeming affair with the restaurant owner? His link with the husband and the financing of the restaurant? His urging the divorce, her not being willing? Persuading her husband to go on the holiday, his leaving after the business calls? Meeting the killer in the bar, his approach, the breakdown, his helping her, discussions, drinking, saying that she wished her husband dead, not believing the proposition made by the killer?

7. Her happy life, the husband’s phone call that he would be home for dinner? His being accosted by the killer, the attack, the shooting, its brutality? The killer with the wife’s gun? The meeting, demanding thirty thousand? The effect?

8. The police, the interrogations, the arrest, the lack of evidence, trying to work on the leads? The police chief, the extra time for interrogation? The restaurant owner’s ex-wife, her perspective, the release of the wife?

9. The restaurateur, his restaurant, his alleged deal with the killer? The plan? His not having the money, his marrying the wife, getting her money? His urging her to have a divorce? The killer, the discussions, the tension between the two? The restaurateur, his confrontation with the wife, his death? The killer, confronting the wife, the violence, her getting the upper hand, shooting him?

10. Her going to the police, protesting her innocence? The ex-wife and her explaining to the police that the rich man’s wife did not have the capacity to be a murderer?

11. The irony of the ending, the plan with the two women – and its success?