Infidelidades

A handyman with marital problems (Nick Nolte) meets a housewife (Lara Flynn Boyle) with the same.

This is really about as average as movies get. The cast is decent, with Lara Flynn Boyle leading the way. Julie Christie received an Oscar nomination... it must have been a slow year, or maybe it was a "career Oscar", because this is not an outstanding film that needed to be singled out by the Academy.

There is no humor, no exciting twists or turns. This is just your standard film of loveless marriage and infidelity. Not one thing about it really stands out as unique. So, what happened here? Why did great actors sign on? Why did Robert Altman help produce?

"You're the most fascinating woman I've ever met", he tells her after knowing her for about five minutes. Perhaps that will give you a sense of the sophomoric nature of "Afterglow"; a film which tells of two neurotic married couples, one middle aged (Nolte/Christie) and one younger (Boyle/Miller), and their respective interwoven infidelities. With a solid core cast and good technical and artistic capabilities and an interesting premise, "Afterglow" should have offered more than characters we're not given to care about even if we could suspend disbelief long enough to care. Nonetheless, there's enough going for this mediocre drama to make it a worthwhile small screen watch for sofa spuds with an appetite for the subject.

Well, I'll begin with what I think is certainly the best thing about this movie, and that would be the acting. Particularly, I think Lara Flynn Boyle and Nick Nolte give the two best performances in the film and play the two most interesting characters. Julie Christie, who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her role in this is good, but I thought her character was actually the least interesting in this. Jonny Lee Miller's performance left me kind of unimpressed at first. I actually thought it was kind of bad to be honest. But after thinking on it, I think his performance is fine. It's my least favorite out of the four, but I think his acting fits his character's buttoned-up demeanor. I also enjoyed the music in this film. I enjoy jazz, so I found it very pleasant. I even searched for the soundtrack online. But as for the movie itself, I feel like it wants to be straightforward and unconventional at the same time, and I lost track of which movie it was supposed to be. On the surface, it's about two couples who end up unknowingly switching partners via infidelity. And yet two of the four people I don't really care that much about. Lara Flynn Boyle's character is the most interesting to me out of everyone, and I felt the most for her. While I don't condone what she does about her situation, hers seems the easiest to understand. Nick Nolte's character is my second favorite character in the film, and that's largely also in part of him just being a great actor. I don't condone his actions, and yet his unfaithfulness even has some slight reasoning behind it. But in the case of the characters played by Christie and Miller, not only are they not that interesting separately, but I don't even know what they saw in each other when they began their little fling other than the most obvious thing they had in common, which were unfaithful partners. I understood what led to each couple sort of going about doing things the way they did, however one couple's problems were shown and the others seems to just get explained. And yet, something was still off to me about a character. It seems like a movie where you have to try to make the most of what's here when it's not all spelled out. I don't mind movies like that, but when half of the characters/material are uninteresting and then you have to try to fill in gaps too, I just don't care at the end of the day. It's not a terrible movie, and it has good scenes, but I was kind of underwhelmed by it.

There's no doubt Julie Christie was one of the most unique personalities of the late sixties and early seventies. A remote beauty who was sexy and charming in Billy Liar and Darling, haunting and enigmatic in Don't Look Now and McCabe and Mrs. Miller and one of the few things worth remembering about Doctor Zhivago. Her notorious pickiness when it comes to choosing roles has served her well and she is one of the few stars from that time who has moved quite gracefully through a film career. Her resources as an actress allow the character of Phyllis Mann to come alive in a way that few could accomplish and the magic she creates is unforgetable. Laid back hipster Alan Rudolph's sexual roundelay has a lush look on top and a jazzy score below but it's Christie who sears the visuals with sadness, mystery, and wit. Nick Nolte's rugged charm serves him well throughout and when these two are alone together on screen, the art of film acting is proudly displayed. Watch the scene when a drunken Phyllis tries to rekindle their physical relationship and notice the body language. Note to filmmakers: Rudolph's genius is knowing when not to move the camera and in trusting his actors to do the work.

The film seems ponderous and flat at first and Johnny Lee Miller and Lara Flynn Boyle are still learning their craft (their scenes do grate), but Afterglow is a cockeyed success for those with patience.

How did this movie get rated 6.9 out of 10? Was Nick Nolte stuffing the ballot box? I agree with all who said it was boring and pretentious, but disagree that Julie Christie did much to help it.