Michael and Joanna, a glamorous young married couple, are at a cocktail party in Manhattan when Joanna meets Laura, one of her husband’s work colleagues that he has surprisingly failed to mention is stunningly beautiful. Joanna suspects him of flirting with her (but who can blame him when the party looks so boring) and when they get back home later she starts a fight accusing him of being up to no-good.
By morning they have come to an uneasy truce just as Michael sets out to leave on a business trip with none other than Laura. After he leaves, Joanna slips out of the apartment to go grab a coffee and bumps into Alex a handsome ex-beau who she hasn’t clapped eyes on for two years and just happens to be over from Paris for the weekend and in her neighborhood (it is the movies after all). Flash forward to later that night when Michael is struggling hard to resist the temptations of a night of joy with Laura in her hotel room, whilst Joanna is having dinner with Alex and wondering why she ever gave this French hunk up.
The next morning (no, I’m not going to spoil it and reveal the plot as there is so very little of it after all) and a confused and teary eyed Laura turns to Alex and declares ‘ There is so much going on right now’, but she is so wrong. There simply isn’t and that’s why the well-intended first feature from novice filmmaker Massy Tadjedin fails as nothing much really happens at all.
That aside it also has the added disadvantages of some curious casting. Laura is played by Keira Knightly, who regular readers on my Blog will know annoys me beyond belief just by being on the screen. In all fairness this is probably her best attempt yet at playing a romantic lead, but it still doesn’t move me. Her screen husband is played by Aussie star Sam Worthington (who helped save the world in ‘Avatar’) and I still can’t decide if Michael his character was meant to be such a cold fish, or that’s the most convincing lover/husband he can be. The ‘temptations’ on the other hand were prefect. Both the voluptuous and sexy Eve Mendes as Laura and French matinee idol Guillaume Canet as Alex would have been irresistible to me (but then I can be so shallow).
If you want to be tempted, watch this one at home with your remote control in hand so you can make lighter work of it than I did.
★★★★★
Click for Trailer
Click for Trailer
Labels:
