Intersection

A reworking of Claude Sautet's Les Choses de la Vie (1970), this meticulously directed, flawlessly written, romantic melodrama unfolds in flashback - in the time it takes for a fatal car accident to happen. Successful architect Vincent Eastman (Gere) is experiencing a mid-life crisis: his 16-year marriage to the equally talented Sally (Stone) is empty, held together only by inertia and a mutual responsibility to their daughter Megan (Morrison). Vincent's affair with sensual, spontaneous Olivia (Davidovich) at first seems the perfect way out, yet he continues to hanker for the familiar pleasures his loveless marriage continues to offer. As he vacillates, the failure to choose between wife and mistress causes pain and confusion all round. Less neurotic and sexually charged than usual, Gere digs deep to find the source of his character's chronic indecisiveness. The casting of the vampish Stone as a socially proper, sexually repressed woman is a bold stroke, and Davidovich makes much of her role as the emotionally demanding 'other woman'.