The Affair

No pun intended - it is quite tough to be in love with someone who does not seem to be so sure about their own feelings. Or who just wants to be free - in more than one sense. The main character (female) is gorgeous, so you can understand why her boyfriend (at least he thinks he is and wants to be) fights for her - tries to be a good boy - well as much as possible without losing too much of his own dignity.

There is a word for what she does to him - begins slowly but then without a shame more than flirting with other men. You may feel that he should not allow this to happen ... but maybe he is a glutton for punishment ... also we are all different ... the (s)low budget movie has not much to tell, but if you can dig the drama that evolves ... and the almost philosophical questions that do occur ... well you may have something on your hands here ... just don't try to tie it down ... no pun intended.

Belgian Carl Colpaert has a solid reputation as the founder of CINEVILLE Releasing, as a producer of some very fine small films (Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Where Eskimos Live, Surviving Eden, Hurlyburly, etc) and has directed and written a few less interesting ones. This film THE AFFAIR (originally titled TOPANGA) tries hard to be a European flavored examination of relationships, but for this viewer it falls short not only in story (scripted by Colpaert and Lisa Larrivee) and in a fuzzy cast of TV actors, but also in the directorial stance of being in control of a story that needs a lot of attention.

Jean (Kelsey Oldershaw) is a bored housewife living in a designer house with her architect husband Paul (Horacio Le Don), a man of success who is so self-centered and controlling that he forgets his relationship obligations to his wife. Jean has residual scars from a traumatic childhood experience and her needs go beyond the wifely role, searching for some degree of excitement, passion and fulfillment not available in her marriage. At a local dance club she meets Viggo (Andy Mackenzie), a bohemian passionate, live for the moment guy who sweeps Jean off her feet in an affair that produces disaster in her marriage. The story concentrates on the intricacies of this love triangle, offering alternative ways to approach love, needs, and responsibilities.

The notion is solid (if quite over used) and there are aspects of the film that suffuse the atmosphere with tension and artsy techniques. But in the end the story and the actors elude our concern and we are left feeling like window peeping voyeurs, wondering why we are sneaking a peek. Grady Harp

I was fortunate enough to catch a screening of this film, which I heard had just garnered several top awards at the Worldfest in Houston. I was particularly anxious to see the movie after learning it was helmed by Carl Colpaert, a talented producer/director originally from Belgium who has had the unique "Midas Touch" of discovering unknown talent and giving them their first big break. In fact, Kevin Spacey, Salma Hayek, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Renee Zellweger are just some of the "unknowns" who got their start in Colpaert's films and went on to stellar careers. THE AFFAIR is a very well-crafted dramatic love story, reminiscent of the simpler love story films of the 60s and 70s. Parts of the film which take place on the road reminded me of Stanley Donen's classic 1967 film TWO FOR THE ROAD, with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. The beautiful Kelsey Oldershaw plays Jean, a young woman who constantly seeks an ever-elusive fulfillment in her life, largely due to a traumatic childhood experience. She is married to Paul, played by the talented Horatio Ledon, who is overbearing, authoritative, and seeks to control every facet of Jean's life. Jean finds a breath of fresh air in a hot affair with Viggo, played by Andy Mackenzie, a product of Topanga's Bohemian set who is the exact opposite of Paul. Viggo is like a wild stallion, untamed, unfettered, and eager to fill the gaping void in Jean's life. The film offers a quite surprising, non-traditional view of how Paul and Jean deal with this, for lack of a better term, bizarre love triangle. The film was shot beautifully on HD, with a classy fade-to-black cut after each sequence, to give one the sense of watching individual vignettes, Chekovian "slices of life," strung together in a linear yet loose and free fashion. With their excellent performances, Oldershaw, Ledon, and Mackenzie definitely have a great shot at joining the pantheon of Hollywood stars that Colpaert has had the knack of discovering in the past.

Nice video quality, some pretty places and pretty faces.

Writing was almost as good as an after school special written by high school students.

The acting wasn't.

Couldn't force myself to finish yet another bad movie.

. no one talks like these people ... no one acts like these people ... from one moment to the next they're continually doing-saying things not making much of any sense ... evenly inconsistent throughout ... not the worst film of whatever genre it is, yet coming very-close to being unwatchable

... take-a-way the unnecessary pauses and half the film gets chopped-off ... film's been around now couple decades and never have come across it before now... kinda wishing had not at all ... twenty years and with little more than one hundred thirty IMDb ratings.. that'll tell ya more than anyone putting required number of characters to print.