Women & Men 2: In Love There Are No Rules

You can't judge a video by its cover

When you first pick up a box or disk entitled "Women and Men 2", you're thinking some sort of erotic thriller. The last thing you expect to see is 'produced by David Brown', a man known for producing superior quality motion pictures (Jaws, A Few Good Men, Driving Miss Daisy to mention a few).

What you get is a trio of poignant shorts, about mature relationships between men and women. What you get are the talents of Matt Dillon and Juliette Binoche, Mike Figgis and Jonathan Demme as well as other talented, but lesser known performers..

The stories are well crafted the performances excellent-a nice diversion of 90 or so minutes.

I had never heard of this actress before. After seeing this episode with her great performance, I started looking for her movies. Her beauty and talent amazed me. Since then I've seen all her movies. In my opinion, she is one of the most beautiful and talented actresses of our time. I recently saw her in: " Breaking and Entering," with Jude Law and fell in love with her all over again! Although she has aged but still has that radiant beauty. She is just magnificent in every role she is offered to play and I read an article about her that it is not the money that attracts her to a script but the story and directors are. Her Beautiful face and touching performance in: " That Unbearable Lighness of Being," which I've seen so many times has stayed with me all these years

I am not exactly the type of guy that watches anthologies based on romantic stories all the time but last December I saw this one because of its star studded cast and while I found this kinda depressing in spots it was still ok.

RETURN TO KANSAS CITY: Eddie Megeffin (Matt Dillon) is a boxer that wins a match against a deadly opponent: after the match Eddie is visited by best friend Joey Patrick and his wife Melba (Jared Harris and Jane Krakowski) and his wife Arlene (Kyra Sedgwick) mentions her intention to go to Kansas City for a while tho Eddie is contrary despite he has the habit of sleeping entire days and doesn't have a good memory of Kansas City but in the end he lets his wife leave.

A DOMESTIC DILEMMA: Martin Meadows (Ray Liotta) is an advertising executive that is having an hard time because none of his colleagues want to green-lit his new slogan. Once at home he doesn't even remember it's Christmas as he notices his kids decorating, and his wife Emily (Andie MacDowell) is in the other room because she is hiding the anger towards Martin for the fact that he doesn't care about her anymore and turned their kids against their mother. After Martin puts the kids to sleep he has a vision of the mom that goes in a nightclub and then the kids are found both dead on a slope. In the end Martin and Emily embrace in bed as she returned for real from a nightclub but the kids are likely still alive.

MARA: Mara (Juliette Binoche) is a French prostitute that is noticed by American Henry (Scott Glenn) who is in Paris for writing a book and Henry decides to take her to a nearby restaurant despite they just knew each other and in fact she doesn't want he spends his money on her. Soon she convinces and they both go in a tavern where the prices are lower. When they go out Mara and Henry become passionate and he gives her some money but when she comes back to him he's repulsed and before leaving asks her if nobody has ever treated her well, and they both part separate ways.

While the acting by all (Dillon, Sedgwick, Harris, Krakowski, Liotta, MacDowell, Glenn and Binoche) there were some depressing tones in all three stories that prevented me to give it a higher score. Especially the final story, it came off as confusing because Binoche's character's intentions weren't that clear to begin with while the other two were just ok.

So do I recommend this anthology? Well, yes if you do a steady diet of this sort of movies or if you are a fan of at least one of the stars but I have to warn you that you must have high tolerance for the depressing moments or you won't end up finding the enjoyableness in this movie. And as far as anthologies go, there are worse (such as STRANGERS... terribly executed, confusing and with stories that surpassed belief!).

A trio of mini-TV movies based on short stories by outmoded American writers. 'Kansas' is 'The Wizard of Oz' updated to working class New York in 1939, on the eve of World War 2, with Kyra Sedgewick as an awful wife longing for escape when the world of her dreams stales, forcing her boxer husband Matt Dillon into a potentially fatal fight.

'Dilemma' pays homage to the 1950s Hollywood melodrama, and features Ray Liotta having nightmares prompted by work pressure (he's in advertising, of course), alcoholic wife (Andie MacDowell as an escaped inmate from the Tennessee Williams Crazyhouse), fears for his kids, and the possibility that he might have to fight in Korea.

Mike Figgis' 'Mara' is what you'd expect from a Henry Miller story set in Paris: much talking of talks, little walking of walks.

The first two films are done in the style of glum Masterpiece Theatre (eg Eugene O'Neill), all contrived scenarios and stilted dialogue. Figgis, hampered by indifferent material, squeezes some of the empathetic visual magic he would perfect in 'one night stand'.