With it's premise of anonymous sex and emotionally distant characters this in some ways resembles a cross between "Last Tango in Paris" and the recent "Closer" but the manner in which the material is handled fails to come even remotely close to those superior films. Story is about Jay (Mark Rylance) who's a divorced father of two boys and now is head bartender in a popular English pub. Every Wednesday afternoon he meets Claire (Kerry Fox) and the two of them have sex but do not discuss with each other who the other person is.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** Claire stops coming by on Wednesdays and Jay starts to follow her around and discovers that she's an amateur actress working in a play in the back of a pub. Jay enters the establishment and views the play and actually meets Claire's husband Andy (Timothy Spall) and starts a friendship with him but after a few visits it becomes apparent to Andy what is going on between them.
Patrice Chereau is an actor/director/writer and has worked a good deal in the theater and there are several scenes that take place with the actors that appear could have fit well in a stage production. The story takes an angry approach to it's characters as their portrayed as people who just cannot commit completely emotionally and while as interesting as that is it's hard to feel one way or another for those involved. In "Closer" we don't feel remorse but we do understand (and feel) their pain and anger but here the story tries so hard for the viewer to know how distant these people are that it ultimately becomes impossible to have one feeling or another. Spliced into this film are some pretty good performances and while Rylance shows he can carry a picture it's the always reliable Fox that is easier to identify with. Arguably the best performance comes from Spall (Secrets and Lies) who shows us a character that has good instincts but after all the years of marriage finds out that his wife is terribly unhappy. Chereau presents us with characters that had real potential but the script fails in terms of allowing the viewer to be interested in their struggles.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** Claire stops coming by on Wednesdays and Jay starts to follow her around and discovers that she's an amateur actress working in a play in the back of a pub. Jay enters the establishment and views the play and actually meets Claire's husband Andy (Timothy Spall) and starts a friendship with him but after a few visits it becomes apparent to Andy what is going on between them.
Patrice Chereau is an actor/director/writer and has worked a good deal in the theater and there are several scenes that take place with the actors that appear could have fit well in a stage production. The story takes an angry approach to it's characters as their portrayed as people who just cannot commit completely emotionally and while as interesting as that is it's hard to feel one way or another for those involved. In "Closer" we don't feel remorse but we do understand (and feel) their pain and anger but here the story tries so hard for the viewer to know how distant these people are that it ultimately becomes impossible to have one feeling or another. Spliced into this film are some pretty good performances and while Rylance shows he can carry a picture it's the always reliable Fox that is easier to identify with. Arguably the best performance comes from Spall (Secrets and Lies) who shows us a character that has good instincts but after all the years of marriage finds out that his wife is terribly unhappy. Chereau presents us with characters that had real potential but the script fails in terms of allowing the viewer to be interested in their struggles.