Director Adrian Lyne is certainly no stranger to controversial, thought-provoking cinema, having tapped into messed-up sexual relationships in 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction (which earned him an Oscar nomination), Indecent Proposal and Lolita.  With Unfaithful, you can expect more of the same, with a concentration of style over substance that should leave most of the audience in all of their softcore glory.

If you've seen Unfaithful's trailer, you already have a pretty good idea of its story.  Edward and Connie Sumner (Richard Gere and Diane Lane – has it really been 17 years since The Cotton Club?) are a seemingly happy couple living in Westchester.  Their 11-year marriage has produced a son (Erik Per Sullivan, Malcolm in the Middle) who is neither irritatingly precocious nor predictably troubled in any way.  The film opens with stormy weather foreshadowing both upcoming trouble and providing the meet-cute that sets the story in motion.  While walking through SoHo, the hurricane-force wind blows Connie into book dealer Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez , Before Night Falls), knocking them both over and causing her to skin her knee.

Like any suave European, Paul invites Connie up to his apartment so she can clean her wound.  She does, and there's chemistry between them, but why wouldn't there be?  He's hot, she's hot, so there are only two questions left to answer: Is he a serial killer, and who gets to be on top? Seriously – if you've seen the trailer, you know they're going to get it on. You know the suspicious Edward going to hire Uncle Junior from The Sopranos to investigate the affair.  You know someone is going to be physically hurt, and that everyone will be mentally damaged in some way.  Connie knows it's going to end badly but still spreads like peanut butter.

One could easily assume the trailer reveals the entire plot, but in reality, it shows nothing that occurs in the second half of the film.  Strangely, this second half is the weaker of the two.  The finale doesn't offer much resolution, but I doubt you would find that in a similar real-life situation, either.  One bothersome thing Unfaithful never really fleshes out is Edward's background.  We know he owns a security company, so it's deliciously ironic that he's so insecure when it comes to Connie, but why is this?  Had he always been suspicious?  He doesn't have enough to go on from what we see here.  It's a slight flaw from screenwriter Alvin Sargent, who, since penning the Oscar-winning scripts for Ordinary People and Julia, has flamed out with pictures like Anywhere But Here, Bogus and Hero (Unfaithful is based on Claude Chabrol's La Femme Infidele).

A Walk on the Moon must have been Lane's warm-up for this performance, which, to date, is the year's best from an actress (she's like an older, classier and much more attractive version of Jennifer Lopez).  Here, she takes the unfaithful wife to a whole new level, highlighted by the scene that depicts Connie's first sexual encounter with Paul (which, for a few seconds, nearly seemed like Lyne wasn't going to show us).  She's a bundle of raw emotion, doing an unbelievable job of looking uncomfortable, flustered and incredibly turned on.  On the train home back to the suburbs, she frantically walks the line between sheer ecstasy and complete disappointment in herself.

Women will most certainly dig the story and the arty sex scenes, while men will likely be too disturbed by the ease of Connie's seduction to really enjoy the latter (but it is refreshing to have the tables turned a bit).  Neither will be able to deny how exquisitely beautiful these sex scenes are.  Glowingly photographed by Peter Biziou (The Truman Show) and unconventionally cobbled together by Anne V. Coates (Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich and Out of Sight), Lyne's picture is dark and its scenes of passion are all flesh and shadow. You can practically feel the heat.

2:00 –

for sexuality, language and a scene of violence