Paixões Paralelas

Slightly bland love story with psychopatological elements where a woman lives two different lives in different countries (France and New York,US) but is unable to distinguish which one is real and which is just a dream. The movie has high production values but could have gone much further on its premise. An ultra romantic soundtrack doesn't help either.

Demi Moore is excellent in this intelligent drama about a widow living with her children in France who keeps going to sleep and waking up as a single career woman in New York. The double life is so effectively convincing that she can't tell which of the lives is real and which is the dream. On top of this, she has romantic interests in both lives, a controlling and passionate writer in France (Stellan Skarsgard), and a giving and kind man in New York (William Fichtner, his best performance yet). Moore's fascinating screen presence keeps this movie going even when it sags terribly in the middle, and Ronald Bass' script makes such a compelling argument for both of her lives that it's very difficult to guess for yourself what the outcome will be. The film's conclusion is so well played out and rewarding that it renders any previous flaws completely void. Also features a rich performance by Sinead Cusack.

Demi Moore is a very beautiful woman, and once again she proves that beauty alone cannot carry a movie. I've seen many of her movies, and only one of them really stands out to me as one that's worth watching more than once, and that's "A Few Good Men" - but it's worth watching for Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. Demi is basically window-dressing there.

"Passion of Mind" is typical Demi stuff. She has a troubled life as Marie/Marty - troubled because she isn't sure which one she really is; one life is a dream, the other reality. As Marie, she's a mother of two in France, as Marty she's a high powered literary agent in New York. Then in both lives she falls in love: in France with William (Stellan Skarsgård) and in New York with Aaron (William Fichtner.) The movie at times is confusing as she shifts from one life to another (which is all right, because it surely points to the confusion she has herself in trying to sort out reality from fantasy) and although there are hints from the very beginning as to which life is real (I took a guess that turned out to be right almost right away, but it was a guess) it does remain a mystery until the end. The last fifteen minutes or so of the movie add the needed emotional heart-wrencher as she says good-bye to those in her fantasy world and prepares for life in reality.

All fine. The primary problem with the movie is that Demi is living out two lives, neither one of which - quite honestly - are all that interesting, and which, as a result, don't make for particularly interesting viewing. In the end, this is a pretty standard Demi Moore movie. She doesn't offer a particularly energetic performance, but she's OK, and the movie isn't particularly good, but it isn't awful either.

5/10

Surprisingly absorbing film that requires your patience (to let it unfold) and your attention (to capture all the nuances, and they are there). Demi Moore (looking angular and pale like Courteney Cox-Arquette, yet more flexible) is very fine as a woman living parallel lives, one of which is a dream-world. She's a widowed book reviewer in France with two kids and also a literary businesswoman in New York City. Complicating matters are two separate lovers (and shrinks!) who all say that the OTHER life she's having is a dream. Plot is laid out in elementary terms (with some nice surreal edges there at the finale) and I found it a pleasant, intriguing bit of fantasy, quite romantic in its melodrama. And for the poster who hated this on both plane flights he saw it on, heads up: most films look bad on planes. *** from ****

An interesting argument in a very slow film, which seems to be more French than an American made one. You must see carefully the first scenes to follow the proposed plot. If you do not that you will be certainly lost by mid of the film. Even though you will be in doubt regarding the real personality of Marie/Martha Marie 'Marty' Talmadge (Demi Moore). Whom she really loved? it was a mystery.