Infedeli per sempre

I just love this film. First, Paul Mazursky is one of my all time favourite directors and the performances (other than Ryan O'Neal's) are just top notch. It's a great screenplay, the editing is on point.. there is little not to love here. I say it when it came out and I can still quote it years later. It's a small film, no special effects, no spectacular stunts. But Cher and Chazz Palminteri have great chemistry both deserve much praise here and Mazursky handles it with his usual understanding of how people interact in real life. His "Next Stop Greenwich Village" is in my top 10 films of all time. But this is my second favourite film of his. A great director in really fine form... and it's worth a watch.

"Faithful" directed by Paul Mazurski doesn't add anything to his otherwise prestigious resume. As a comedy director, Mr. Mazurski has done better. Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to have been inspired, by the story or by his cast.

In fact, one of the worst things in the film is the overbearing role of Chazz Palmentieri, whose Tony is one of the most obnoxious things he has played in the movies. Cher, as Margaret, the redheaded woman, married to a rat fink, doesn't bring anything new to the screen. She could do much better, but unfortunately, not here. Finally, Ryan O'Neal doesn't have much to do.

The best thing about "Faithful" is its 91 minutes running time! Sorry Mr. Mazurski, you need to stay away from whoever told you Chass Palmentieri's screen play had possibilities.

Faithful all in all is a pretty disappointing movie. Cher is brilliant and gives as usual a good performance. But, Chaz once again plays that typical role (gangster, hit man, etc.). The movie has its moments but, not much else.

I have to admit, I enjoyed this movie tremendously when I watched it alone, and later when a group of friends watched it in my house I was embarrassed by how much they hated it. You have to be in the mood for it.

Cher must be commended, to carry off a movie when you spend exactly half of your screen time tied to a chair is pretty remarkable. The interplay between Tony and Margaret is much better when it is just the two of them, Ryan O'Neal doesn't bring much of anything to his part and the film declines somewhat when he enters the home.

The only real annoyance is the HORRIFIC injections of Mazurski as some kind of freak shrink that is supposed to be funny; it may well be the single unfunniest and most unnecessary character in the history of film. You could totally fast forward through every second Masurski is on the screen and it would only improve the film.

I think women will like this a lot better than men, but it's a good film and very underrated. For most of 1996 it was my favorite film.

Faithful (1996)

*** (out of 4)

Jack (Ryan O'Neil) is a lying, cheating husband who is having an affair with his 24-year-old secretary while his wife Margaret (Cher) sits at home living in a state of depression wondering what has gone wrong with her life. Margaret has all the money in the world but this isn't enough because she missing the touch of her husband plus she's too scared to leave him even though she knows he's cheating on her. With their twentieth anniversary here Margaret decides to make a change.

Before any change can take place, Jack (Chazz Palminteri), a Mafia hit man enters the house at gunpoint and tells the wife that she's going to die. Jack ties Margaret to a chair and tells her that he's waiting for the phone to ring twice, which is the signal from her husband that he's got an alibi and that the killing can take place. While waiting for the phone call Jack and Margaret begin talking and Jack is shocked to learn that the change the wife was going to do was kill herself. When Jack hears this he realizes that he has saved her life and the two also begin to realize that they have more in common than Margaret ever did with her husband.

Faithful was released to limited theaters back in 1996 and died a quick death without much buzz around the film. The box office take was small and there wasn't too much critical talk about the film but to me this is a very underrated art film with some very deep drama and a twisted sense of black humor, which sadly tried to be sold to the public as some sort of lighthearted comedy. This is the type of film that's about nothing at all. There's not too much going on throughout the film except for the appeal of its cast and the dialogue being spoken by them.

When I said the film was about nothing that's the honest truth because there isn't a single thing that happens in the film. We are given a setup but a minute later we know there's not going to be anything bad that happens. We can see it in the characters and we can see the silly setup and while we're expecting something funny to happen the screenplay by Palminteri takes a different approach and goes for some heavy handled drama, which seems out of place yet the actors are so convincing that we are brought deeper into the situation. This story was originally a stage play by Palminteri and while it doesn't translate too well to the screen there's still plenty to enjoy here.

Cher has always been a reliable actress and she does a wonderful job here in a demanding role that takes her from a suicidal case to an overly powerful and vengeful wife seeking answers in her life. The suicide part of the performance is done without words and we can just look at her eyes and see how she's feeling and know exactly why she's feeling it. At the end of the film Cher confronts her cheating husband and while this could have gone over the top, Cher's performance is so compelling that everything comes off believable and makes up from the heavy drama earlier in the film. Ryan O'Neil has never been an actor I've overly enjoyed but he's also very nice here. Chazz Palminteri on the other hand is one of my favorite character actors who has proved himself in Robert DeNiro's A Bronx Tale as well as Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway. His thick New York accent and mobster like personality is very charming and his dramatic turn here comes off wonderfully well.

I think Faithful has been forgotten because it's not really a film with any sort of payoff. There's never any suspense that someone is going to get killed and there's not enough laughs to keep a mainstream audience interested. Instead we are given a dialogue driven film with two depressed people and an adulterous husband who tries to have his wife killed. I think the film could have used a bit more comedy and the stuff with Palminteri's shrink never really works. This is the type of film that when it's over the viewer will probably ask themselves what was the point of the film. There isn't a point to the movie. Instead, we're given wonderful dialogue and three wonderful performances making the situation more interesting than it should be.