Annette Bening stalks her suitor, played by Ed Harris.
Annette Bening stalks her suitor, played by Ed Harris.
Some clumsy plotting and a fatally unlikeable main character combine to torpedo a promising premise in this romantic drama. Bening plays Nikki, mourning the loss of her architect husband Garrett (Harris), when she spots his exact double at an art gallery.
Garrett's been dead five years but Nikki plainly hasn'tspent much time or money in grief counselling: rather than take the doppelganger for a cup of coffee and a natter ("This is going to sound really strange ...") she stalks him, never letting on what the basis of her interest is.
The new old man is Tom (Harris, naturally), a boho art teacher whom she engages for private lessons, where he says stuff that art teachers say, like "express yourself". One thing leads to another.
There are obvious dangers in Nikki's dissembling, not least that her daughter (Weixler) and lonely neighbour (a grievously miscast Williams looks as comfortable as a giraffe trying to play a crocodile) know what Garrett looks like, and there are several moments that beat with the pulse of a thriller.
But the emotional geometry is all wrong: with every scene, as the relationship blossoms, we like the deceived Tom more and deceiving Nikki less. Her neurosis begins to look kooky, then creepy, then borderline psychotic.
Director Posin's script is full of heavy-handed symbolism that drops lines with a thud. Tom tells Nikki, who dresses houses for sale, that "you breathe life into the emptiness"; she first sees him at an exhibition called "In Pursuit of the Past".
Much is redeemed by the main actors' skill - Bening in particular achieves a real emotional range - but when the film as a whole is not being faintly icky, it's obvious and banal.
Cast:
Annette Bening, Ed Harris, Robin Williams, Jess Weixler
