Customer Reviews

A Woman's Guide to Adultery

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This 3 part British TV movie is remarkable for giving us Theresa Russell in a performance less mannered than usual. It probably helps that her husband Nicolas Roeg isn't the director since their collaborations - Bad Timing, Cold Heaven, Insignificance, Track 29, Eureka - are exercises in excruciata. Here director David Hayman tones down Russell's Valley Girl breathiness and slatterny tight-jaw, and even releases her sense of humour. She is the main focus and the only American of the 4 women who dally in adultery to different extents. Her affair with married Sean Bean climaxes in a confrontation about photos she has taken of him unknowingly, and her anger is funny. She plays off all her co-stars well, and has a good-natured chuminess with Bean's sister, Amanda Donohoe, herself involved with a married man, and Donohoe's directness is always good to have around. Less coverage is given to married Ingrid Lacey and her affair, and Fiona Gillies as a cuckolder. Lacey has the good fortune to have Adrian Dunbar as her husband, but Gillies is the less empathetic of the lot, probably since her strategies are so obvious, and because the cuckolded Pooky Quesnel is so touchingly vulnerable. The treatment given to these misdemeanours thankfully doesn't demonise men, and we see the irony of adultery - the participants who dream of romance and liberation are swamped with awkwardness, frustration and guilt. Hayman stages 3 party scenes to display social embarassment and subterfuge, uses a cliched but funny opening of shutters to introduce us to Paris, and cuts from a painful admission to the admittor being photographed applying lip liner. A few lines made me laugh - "This is a love affair, not a business deal", and "If he cared about me he wouldn't have had an affair with me". However the music score by the Munich Symphonic Orchestra (!) is inappropriate - we expect everyone to appear in period dress. Now, if only Roeg could have an affair and use an actress other than his wife once in a while ...

This movie verged on a 3-star rating just because I really liked 75% of the acting. The script and story have little muscle and barely outline motivations that are supposed to be subtle. The script nudges the action with stereotypes. The story is dated by its emerging feminism that might not be so obvious on that side of the planet now. I watched the whole thing because some of the actors presented interesting characters - they brought presence to the movie in a way I don't think an American actor and director could have done. (Isn't the U.K one big chamber ensemble anyway?) Amanda Donohoe, Sean Bean (a current favorite of mine these days), and Adrian Dunbar pulled my interest along while I did chores and had nothing else to watch. Theresa Russell is a problem. She is pretty, [physically attractive], spunky and had no chemistry with the other actors on screen. In a profession where work is so sparsely available, I am grateful that the producers hired these talented people to keep the paychecks coming to tide them over for a better script and production. The photography is well done.

The film tells the story of three couples each faced with the issue of infidelity. The characters are very convincing and played by an excellent cast of british stars and while the film is long it was very engrossing. While three-couples-in-one story has become quite a worn out format for relationship movies, this one excells at it with the depth of the emotions experienced by the characters, the lenghts to which the script goes in exploring the motivation behind their behaviour and the marvellous performance of the actors.

Very highly recommended for couples who want to watch something intelligent together.

I purchased this product strictly because Sean Bean was in it. I have followed him ever since I caught a glimpse of his Sharpe character on BBCA many years ago. He is a fine actor and did not dissapoint here either. So, why only one star?

Well, Sean Bean's acting was the only positive thing with which I could come up regarding this mini series. The rest of the performances were good some of the time, and either overwrought or amateurish majority of the time. The series dealt with four women, related by blood or friendship, who each pursued an illfated search for love. The naivety of the dialogue was compounded by the selfrighteousness with which the writers had infused it. The relentless speeches about love and all it conquered would be too immature for high schoolers. Coming from middle aged characters, they were downright laughable. The characters were thoroughly dispicable, none relatable. The series did not entertain, it aggrevated. It did not teach either, as I remain oblivious as to the point the makers were trying to promote. The only thought it provoked was: I can't believe I am wasting my time watching this...

If you are a hard core Sean Bean fan, do see it just to check it of your list. Otherwise, do a spot of gardening, put some time on a treadmill, pick lint out of your belly button...anything to avoid watching this series...

Judge David Johnson, DVD Verdict-- Beyond a cash-in attempt on Sean Bean's fame, I can't summon any reason for A Woman's Guide to Adultery to come back to us. The storyline follows separate women and their unlucky and often painful pursuits of men who are either married or emotionally stunted. The Bean-centric story, which finds a particularly repugnant woman named Rose (Theresa Russell, Wild Things) stupidly falling for him (Paul) even though she knows he has a wife. She then proceeds to get vindictive, when he opts to end their affair and stick with his spouse, who happens to be pregnant. Paul comes off looking like a flaccid doormat and Rose, who sets off on a campaign to publicly humiliate him with nude photos, turns into a detestable she-demon. Frankly, I could care less if either of these tools find happiness.
-Full review at dvdverdict.com

Viewpoints on the issue of adultery are affected by the period in which one has grown up, and comments about the film reflect that. This film was made some time ago and indicate the changing values at the time it was made. I'm pleased with Bean's choices for the movies he has made for the most part and his abilities to make them meaningful, including this one -- but admit that Amanda Donohoe and the character she played, as well as the actor who played the initial cuckolded spouse shown -- stood out, probably because their characters demonstrated the most integrity. In considering it in terms of my own private life and experiences, I am fascinated by what it had to say, how it said it, and the pace of the film in weaving together the choices made by the characters.

Unfortunately Mr. Hayman has taken a clever script and a handful of talented actors and combined them with chopping editing, unfeeling direction and a handful of bad actors. This had the potential to be a witty and entertaining film. Instead it turned out to be a real disappointment. It is my opinion that Ms. Russell should perhaps take up doing childrens' material. Children like over-acting.