|
|
|
|
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
|
Bad Behaviour by Stephen Farber Bad Behaviour is a semi-improvised British film that captures the small but maddening conflicts of middle-class marriage. This isn't the nonsensical, trumped-up marital melodrama that bedevils Tom Cruise and Jeanne Tripplehorn in The Firm; it's the kind of slightly surreal anguish that actually drives most couples crazy. Gerry McAllister (Stephen Rea), his wife Ellie (Sinead Cusack) and their two sons live in suburban north London, and seem at first glance to be a happy family. Gerry is a town planner preoccupied with his job and with a younger woman at the office; Ellie works part-time in a bookstore and has vague, unrealized career ambitions that her husband doesn't take seriously. Things begin to unravel when they hire a contractor to modernize their bathroom; the intrusion of a band of outsiders into their home adds a disruptive element that threatens their already shaky marriage. Anybody who's lived through the remodeling of a house will recognize the truth in director Les Blair's observation of the emotional turmoil that such physical disarray can engender. Yet the film opts for comic rather than tragic crises, and it doesn't play out predictably. Gerry's flirtation with his coworker is never consummated. Gerry and Ellie stew and bicker but end up with a bit more understanding then they had at the beginning. Perhaps to some audiences, the lack of explosive dramatic confrontations will seem anticlimactic. But I think the movie perfectly catches the volatility as well as the durability of an imperfect marriage. Stephen Rea and Sinead Cusack are both irresistibly natural, one of the most believable and attractive couples to make it into a contemporary movie. Cusack is a special revelation as the frustrated wife. This is the best role she's had on-screen, and she joins Emma Thompson and Miranda Richardson in the emerging pantheon of great actresses from abroad. What did you think of this movie? Sound off in the Movie Forum. |
|
|
| home | forum | this month | reviews archive | features archive | back issues | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 © 2003 Movieline.com |
 |