UNFAITHFUL
US, 2002, 124 minutes, Colour.
Diane Lane, Richard Gere, Olivier Martinez, Chad Lowe, Kate Burton, Margaret Colin, Erik Per Sullivan
Directed by Adrian Lyne.
The wind blows through a beautiful Westchester County home outside of New York City. Constance Sumner (Diane Lane), her husband Edward (Richard Gere), and 11-year old son Charlie (Erik Per Sullivan) are content as they go about their daily lives. As Edward leaves for work, Constance tells him she is going to the city later to arrange for a charity auction and to buy a birthday present for Charlie.
The wind blows stronger in the city, and Constance cannot get an empty cab to take her to the train. She falls into a young man carrying an armload of books while waving frantically for a taxi. He invites her to his apartment to dress her wound. An empty taxi approaches, but she chooses to go upstairs with Paul (Olivier Martinez).
Constance finds excuses to return to the city and visit the much younger man. They begin a passionate affair. Constance keeps saying she must stop, but she chooses to continue again and again. One day, two of Constance’s friends, Tracy and Sally, see her near Paul’s apartment. She lies about what she is doing there. They go for coffee and during the conversation, Tracy says that adultery is wrong; it always ends badly—for everyone.
Another day, Constance and Paul are at the café and Bill (Chad Lowe), who works for Edward, sees them together, kissing and laughing. When Edward fires Bill for disloyalty to the company that has been like a family to him, Bill yells back at him to look to his own family. Edward’s gradually growing suspicions are confirmed. He hires a private detective who takes photos of Constance and Paul together.
Edward goes to visit Paul and, in his sorrow and rage, kills him and dumps his body in a landfill. Just before he leaves Paul’s apartment, he checks his phone messages, and Constance has called, breaking off their affair.
Detectives come to question Constance and Edward, but they are evasive. Constance finds the pictures of her and Paul in Edward’s coat and realizes what has happened. Guilt unites them, though Edward talks about turning himself in. Their future is as unclear as a windy, rainy, dark night.
Adrian Lyne has been associated with a number of movies that have explored sexuality, infidelity, and adultery and many of them have been very frank in their depictions of sexual behavior. Some of them posed sexual moral dilemmas: 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal, Lolita. With Unfaithful, Lyne has shown greater restraint in portraying sexual scenes and placed greater reliance on the performances and the power of the dialogue to convey the underlying emotions and issues. The movie is all the better for it.
The source for Unfaithful is a French film by a master of suspense and psychological thrillers, Claude Chabrol; it is based on his 1969 film, La Femme Infidele (The Unfaithful Wife). In it, Stephane Audran portrays what the French call a “bourgeois” wife married to an older man, Michel Bouquet. Chabrol spent decades showing the darker side of the French middle-class, using basic moral predicaments like adultery to challenge standards and values in French family and in society.
Because Lyne is so provocative in his film-making, the immediate reaction to Unfaithful was that it was an exploitation piece. However, a careful viewing shows that Lyne is doing for American society at the beginning of the 21st century what Chabrol was doing for his French contemporaries. The ending is especially ambiguous, challenging audiences to think about what they would or would not do in similar circumstances.
An Oscar-nominated performance by Diane Lane as the unfaithful wife helps Lyne. Richard Gere is at his best as the aggrieved husband. Olivier Martinez (Horseman on the Roof, Before Night Falls, S.W.A.T.) plays the lover. Unfaithful is a good example of Hollywood’s ability to present moral issues and dilemmas for an adult audience.
In Unfaithful, Constance repents, but too late to halt the consequences of her behavior.
Unfaithful, as its title suggests, is a straightforward film about adultery. It looks at a marriage which is weaker than either the husband or wife have imagined. It shows the wife hesitating and then committing herself to an adulterous relationship while trying to keep marriage and family together. It also shows the suspicious husband learning the truth as well as the unsuspected violence within him when he confronts his wife's lover.
Connie Sumner in Unfaithful can be considered in the light of the story of the woman taken in the very act of committing adultery in John 8. Her husband has her followed by a detective. When he sees the photos of her with Paul Martel, he confronts her. This is the challenge Edward Sumner faces so that he and Connie can have a future. Can her forgive her? After his own angry and righteous confrontation of Paul Martel—not to speak of his impulsive, unjust killing of Martel and his concealing his crime—must he forgive her?
1. Contemporary setting, suburbs, New York City, homes, lofts, cafes, offices, streets? Score?
2. Domestic scenes, happiness, restrained husband, lively child?
3. Edward at work, hard phone calls, challenge to Bill and firing him?
4. Connie and the encounter with Paul, in his loft? Why the affair?
5. Connie and her friends and the warning about affairs ending badly?
6. Connie’s first encounter with Paul and the taxi; visiting Paul in his apartment, his seductive behavior, her acquiescing and committing herself to the affair; the scene on the train as she returns home, the expressions on her face showing a whole range of emotions and the conflicting feelings that she had experienced; her friend’s warning against adultery?
7. Edward's suspicions of his wife's conduct confirmed by the photos and his visit to Paul; his emotional response to meeting Paul, to seeing and being in the place of the adultery; his growing hurt, anger, and the violent attack resulting in Paul's death?
8. Unfaithful never tells us why Constance makes the choices she does. Her name signifies “constancy,” which means fortitude, fidelity, and loyalty, all of which she denies through her choices and actions. Recall the series of choices she makes (to go into the city even though the weather is bad; to go with Paul rather than take the taxi; to return to his apartment, etc.). What was the state of her conscience? Why do you think she gave into temptation over and over? What made her finally break it off? What about Edward - surprise that he killed Paul? Why or why not? What was the state of his conscience by the end of the film?
9. The final decision for Connie and Edward: the possibility of giving themselves up to the police or the possibility of fleeing to Mexico; their consciences, their concern for their marriage, for their son; sitting at the traffic lights outside the police station and the inconclusive but challenging ending?
10. The film is full of symbols that underpin the theme of the film by showing how the choices a person makes can turn order into chaos. From the opening scenes, we see the laconic setting, the wind, the collection of glass “snow balls” from various cities, the camera, video camera, photographs, the train, water and washing, the dry cleaners, the sore on Constance’s leg. In what ways did these visuals help make meaning from the film?
(Material from Lights, Camera, Faith… The Ten Commandments, Rose Pacatte and Peter Malone)
