Matthew Stechel
The movie starts out promising with Virginia Madsen as a photographer who's upset about her rich husband cheating on her (even tho she keeps claiming that she's not) She soon becomes infatuated with a seemingly charming man whom she's been hired to take modeling photos of. This man is played by Madsen's one time co-star of the movie "Electric Dreams" and the two of them definitely still have chemistry. The two of them engage in an affair and then well unfortunately the movie takes a very sharp left turn involving the male model character that throws everything in the movie completely out of whack. Normally when a movie takes a rather unpredictable left turn, I'm usually pretty thrilled by that, but in this case, I thought it very nearly ruined what could've been a nifty noir with these two actors and their very believable chemistry as lovers. The movie keeps on going with this left turn taken, and soon comes back to Madsen back together with her husband and scared by her encounter with her one time lover, and wondering if she can trust anybody. Soon enough Madsen finds herself being stalked by yet a third guy, and just as she's freaking out to the point that she's getting scared to go anywhere, the male model re-enters her life to try and explain why she's being stalked. (There's a backstory here involving the male model, her ex husband, and a story that the model tells that Madsen doesn't know whether to believe or not, which ends up being the main crux of the movie.) OK so as a story, the sharp turns the narrative take are jarring to watch, but as a movie watcher you go with them kinda hoping they'll take you somewhere, and while they do, I wasn't all that crazy about where they ended up taking me. The ending while definitely surprising, (and pretty ballsy of the filmmakers to try and pull off) did not satisfy--if only because as a fan of Viginia Madsen, and as someone who spent the running time of the movie watching her and rooting for her to pull out of this increasing tail spin the narrative had her in, I feel like she was quite short changed by the abrupt ending the film gave her. I do not recommend, but Virginia Madsen does try her best to make the film watchable, and its to her credit that it is even if the storyline kinda ends up sinking it.
filmluvr-6
The plot is one which has been rehashed many times and leaves the viewer wondering why they continue to watch the movie. You know the one ... the spousal death for insurance plot. There are many points in the film where I asked myself, "why is that happening?". The only answer I could come up with is that the director didn't have the sense to inject some realism into the events of the movie.
