Louis Malle, who raised a multitude of eyebrows with his epochal The Lovers ca. 1958, is not apt to repeat the effect with this. Eroticism, like so much else, marches on. The theme of the middle-aged married man and the younger other woman is of course infinitely renewable, and the fact that the other woman here (Juliette Binoche) is involved simultaneously with the married man's (Jeremy Irons's) son is indeed auspicious. But the fact that the man is a buttoned-down British politico (scripted by the bard of buttoned-down Britishness, David Hare: "We've got to find a structure for this, you know" and "I've never had feelings like this. I've got to get them into some kind of ... order"), and that the other woman comes on like a Daughter-of-Dracula vamp, pulls us back onto depleted soil. The situation grows increasingly perverse and irrational without either rattling or exciting the urbane Monsieur Malle, and it's always a pleasure to watch his framings of people in their homes, haunts, places of business: measured, measuring, assessing, comprehending. There are a number of opportunities, too, for that favorite Malle pastime of fine wining-and-dining (a couple of them graced by the presence of the gloriously gray-maned Ian Bannen). Not much time remains in the movie once the horrible secret comes out -- and an easy exit is sought -- but Miranda Richardson, as the betrayed wife, makes the most of it. (1992) — Duncan Shepherd