An Unfaithful Wife
It is rare that a flashy, sexed up American remake of a French film is so superior, but here is the prime example. What Adrian Lyne’s version, Unfaithful, has in character development, pathos, introspection, believability, and the ability to relate to the characters, Claude Chabrol’s version has none of. Chabrol refuses to lay the groundwork for the affair, and the result is very dull and matter of fact (despite being significantly shorter than the remake), and the husband doesn’t really come off as anything much. There’s a nice final shot and a well handled line where the private detective he hires says, with obvious foreshadowing intended, “I don’t think we’ll see each other again,” but like Chabrol’s other films, it’s not that he expects us to read into the symbolism by being spare, he simply hasn’t done any filling in, not on the lover, the wife, or the husband, so we don’t feel anything at all at the supposedly suspenseful events, other than impatient.