A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

As I was watching this film, it suddenly occurred to me why, after so many years of not liking most British films, in more recent years I have enjoyed more of them. And I think the reason is that the British are a little less into big budget special effects extravaganzas, and more into enjoying a film simply for great acting. And this is an example of the latter.The plot here is quite good. A older man is bicycling and is struck by a vehicle being driven by a younger man. As the plot unfolds it slowly comes to light that the vehicle was actually being driven by a barrister's wife who was having an affair with the younger man. Where are the wife's real loyalties? And who should surrender to the police? And will they? And is the husband just being a sap? What's interesting here is that some plot twists you may expect don't happen...and I guess that's a plot twist in and of itself.Tom Wilkinson is one of those actors whom it's a pleasure just watching. He is superb here, as he has been in every film in which I have seen him. He plays the wronged husband who has his own faults. He did seem just a tab bit too old for the part, however.Emily Watson is the wife/adulteress. A good performance, although I was not at all familiar with her.Rupert Everett plays the cad here...and does it quite well. He doesn't look well.Richenda Carey is very good as the dead man's wife, who is also a maid for Wilkinson and his wife. A good backstory there.If you want a thrill a minute, pass it by. If you want really solid acting...enjoy!

If we could have "Separate Tables," why not "Separate Lies."This becomes somewhat involved. A housekeeper's husband is killed when he is hit by a car while on a bicycle. The culprit turns out to be the woman she cleans for. The latter was having an affair with a friend and was driving the car with the lover in it when the accident occurred. To complicate matters further, the housekeeper once worked for the guy's parents and he had her jailed for stealing. Therefore, people will hesitate to believe that it was his car that caused the accident. Sounds like she wants revenge.This all becomes convoluted. When our housekeeper discovers that her boss was driving the car, she recants her testimony much to the dismay of the officer who is working on the case.As if this isn't enough, several months later, our lover (Rupert Everett) becomes terminally ill and our lady (Emily Watson) leaves her husband (Tom Wilkinson) to care for him.The acting is quite good here despite the never-ending "Peyton Place" like theme. Tom Wilkinson, is a solicitor, who tries to protect his wife.The film is a good one, but we could have done without the terminal illness. O well, the marriage ended anyway.

I was pulled into this movie early on, much to my surprise, because I hadn't intended to watch it at all. Now I wish I hadn't. The suspense starts out well, with the hit-and-run resulting in death and the question of whether the guilty character will confess, or be found out, or (doable now, though a no-no in the old days of movie-making) get away with it. The plot's been done before--what plot hasn't--but the tensions inherent in it, with the additional complications and motivations arising out of the illicit love affair, make for an absorbing first half. Then the film abandons the hit-and-run to embark upon a misty exposition of two unrequited, all-suffering loves. The two tracks of plot--hit-and-run and unreasoning love--just don't have enough to do with each other, and that they involve the same characters doesn't bind them enough to justify the departure from the original story line. The screenwriter should have chosen one plot or the other. At the end of the film, in the midst of the movie's second funeral, I found myself thinking, "Now, what does any of this have to do with that hit-and-run?" The filmmakers may think the answer obvious, but I think the movie was plotted and executed flabbily.

I'm a huge fan of both Emily Watson (Breaking The Waves) and Tom Wilkinson (Normal) and was amused to see them upstaged by Rupert Everett (Dellamorte Dellamore) in this shockingly rather minor movie that had all the ingredients to be so much more. The too brief scenes in which he portrays a languid, infinitely entitled, worthless son of a rich Lord are spot-on and entertaining. But for a love triangle there was remarkably little chemistry to speak of between anyone. The music was annoyingly movie-of-the-week quality, and the voice-over jarring and totally unnecessary. Clearly the work of a first-time director with a small budget who either lacked or didn't sufficiently heed good advice. Too bad.I can appreciate how the people you kind of hate at the beginning are the ones you kind of like at the end, and vice-versa, so there is some sort of character arc, at least in terms of perception. For example, Watson's character, while refreshingly honest to her husband about her feelings for another man, began to grate on me near the end, particularly when she announced to her husband that she simply had absolutely no control over her actions, and later when she simply declared that she would be moving back into their marital flat, with no asking of permission, no apologies offered. And I went from disliking Wilkinson's control freak / moral relativist character to sort of understanding him and not really wanting him to change (unlike his wife).This movie awkwardly morphed from a whodunit to a "Love Story" or "Steel Magnolias" illness drama without sufficiently informing me of the fact, so I was left distractedly guessing what the next plot twist might be long after they had all been revealed (Was it the Lord driving the car? The Lord's dog?). The scene where the Lord visits Wilkinson and relates how brave Watson is, the bestest nurse any dying boyfriend could ever ask for, Florence Nightingale incarnate, etc. was OK until he started over-the-top sobbing like a baby. Good God! If you ask me she's just another flitty rich person with way too much time on her hands, and so she drives her hard working, well providing spouse crazy with unnecessary drama. Her screwing around was just another way to occupy her empty life; the dying guy thing was an added bonus for her as it somehow made her previous actions completely above reproach.Look, everyone would have been better off if Wilkinson had just left her for his secretary, who seemed to appreciate him for who he was. Instead he acted like an abused dog, his open craving for his wife's affection increasing with every kick she gives him. I'm not anti PC or anything, it just didn't ring true, even after taking into account all of the harsh realities of middle age we all tend to face. The ending for me was (and not the director's intention I am certain) depressing. The movie spent the last 80 minutes convincing me that these two people just don't belong together, so I found no joy in the promise of their relationship continuing. I'm not above wanting my emotions manipulated by a story, it just has to be somewhat plausible and not hackneyed. Is that asking too much?My score: 4/10