A Modern Affair

I came across this movie on a small independent vendor website because I am a big fan of Stanley Tucci. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised with this little known classic. Here is my synopsis:

Grace Rhodes' biological clock is ticking and time is running out. As a middle aged woman in New York city, finding the perfect man is more of a crap shoot than a dance with cupid. With the prospects running thin and the need for something more fulfilling in her life, she finds the perfect solution, cashing out at the local sperm bank. But finding the right wiggly candidate for the job isn't enough, soon she can't resist the desire to meet her test tube lover in person. Stanley Tucci plays Peter Kessler, donor #247, an artist who just so happens to be on the market for a new lady when Grace Rhodes steps in. What follows is a contemporary love story that could only be told in an age of cryogenics and gene modification. A Modern Affair is a truly unique take on the traditional boy meets girl love story. Heartfelt, witty, and original, it will take all the inhuman discomforts that an age of cold scientific research creates and nestle you warmly back into the purity of love and destiny.

Stanley Tucci and Lisa Eichhorn both deliver top notch performances in this film. However, I must say that my personal favorite was Grace's best friend, Elaine, played by Caroline Aaron. She is just the kind of spunky risk taking friend that everyone wants to have and makes stories like these possible. The dialogue is also not to be missed, like when Grace contemptuously envisions a young temp as "engaging in the most photogenic sex that God or Calvin Klein ever devised."

If your looking for a quiet night kind of movie that'll make you chuckle and just feel good, then A Modern Affair is a perfect match.

This film expresses much more than a simple love connection between two characters, Stanley Tucci and Lisa Eichhorn, but instead represents the modern changes in society that have become somewhat more accepted in the 90s. These changes, for instance, Lisa Eichhorn being a woman with a high level career position embarks on a journey to form a family on her own, have become a huge power movement for women during those years. This film also represented a wide range of emotions by every character that keeps the audience intrigued. I definitely recommend watching this romantic-comedy as it isn't any typical rom-com that most are used to.

A Modern Affair is a pleasant and enjoyable film that is even more applicable in our modern society. The increased spread of IVF and non-traditional birth methods only builds on the film's story which focuses on a single businesswoman (Lisa Eichhorn) who seeks to find the man behind a donor profile (Stanley Tucci). I highly recommend it if you are looking for a rom-com or simply a great performance by Stanley Tucci.

4.5 out of 5 stars

This is a very strange and dark movie. Solely on the basis of Lisa Eichhorn's presence in it, I saw it (alone) in a New York theater the evening I read the newspaper review. In this sole N.Y. theater for its performance, on the night it opened, only one other person was in the theater at the 7:30 showing.

I have loved Lisa Eichhorn since I first saw her in Yanks. If she's in a play, I attend the play. If she's in a TV program, I watch the TV program. I've never been like this about another actor or actress. She has qualities that are apparently unappreciated because she has not become a big star.

Perhaps her most evident characteristic is a look of extraordinary intelligence and sensitivity. Although some other actresses share this (e.g., Mary Beth Hurt, Blair Brown, Lee Remick, Amy Irving, Meryl Streep), Eichhorn also has an other- worldly sort of presence. She is never really there - there are depths of feeling and perception and memory into which some random comment has thrust her. She is the most fascinating actress I've ever seen.

Although meant to be a sort of comedy, the movie is in fact quite sad and dark. Fortunately, Miss Eichhorn is wonderful at "sad and dark"! There is a short but very moving scene with Wesley Addy (playing her quite old father) in which his life-long contempt for his daughter's competence is made clear without too much being said.

The loneliness of a woman in a large city at the end of the century is what the movie is really about - and it makes one shiver. The niche of former times, places is gone - the preserving of jams and the quilting bee are gone, the organizing committee and the planned demonstrations are not for most, the spouse and hearth do not exist. What is left is an ageing woman, conscientious and longing for connection. It is Lisa Eichhorn's movie and she can be admired. (Although Mr. Tucci is fine, I think the character overreacts to the central turnign point in the movie and thus becamse unlikeable).

On a rainy day or evening, when your husband calls to say he'll be late, but your sister is visiting and the baby quietly sleeps, see this movie, and you'll be moved.

This first time I watched this film, I really didn't get it. I figured, that this was a film for an older crowd, and being a teenager meant I just wasn't going to understand it. But I watched it again a few months later, and I think it's just one of those films you have to watch twice to REALLY understand. A lot of the deep conversations that the two lead characters have in this film kind of went over my head the first time, but when watching it again, I really see what it is that they are saying. It's about the struggle to find love later in life, whether it comes from a partner, from your work, or from forming a family. This was a really great film.