Glossy thriller's twist faithful to suspense

By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan

JAKARTA (JP): If you happen to be yearning for a genuinely suspenseful thriller, then look no further than the nearest cinema showing The Rich Man's Wife. Sandwiched between a formidable selection of screen giants such as The English Patient, Evita, Jerry Maguire and Romeo and Juliet, it's very easy to miss it. But, despite inconsistencies, an overfamiliar plot and a twist that may assault your sense of fair play, it is still as faithful as the genre would allow.

The Rich Man of the title is PBC executive Tony Potenza (Christopher McDonald), a hard-drinking, womanizing middle-aged workaholic. The trophy wife is Josie Potenza (Halle Berry), a beautiful, much younger woman who is so concerned that she too keeps a lover. When her car breaks down one night after a failed save-the-marriage trip to the woods, Josie encounters a seemingly harmless stranger named Cole Wilson (Peter Greene). Soon, the two of them bond over Heinekens and she pours out her marriage woes, including those cliched words, "Sometimes I wish he were dead." Wilson takes her a wee bit too seriously and offers to kill Tony.

Josie immediately bolts at the suggestion -- and away from Wilson. This act of rejection reveals Wilson for what he is, a creepy psycho. After a failed rape attempt, he somehow gets hold of Josie's handgun, murders Tony with it, and blackmails Josie, the most likely suspect.

Granted, the plot is no product of fertile imagination. Too many thrillers -- from Andrew Stevens' soft-porn productions to Fatal Attraction -- have found inspiration from this classic blackmail plot, and it is a decent enough premise for a psychological thriller. So is the picture of a gorgeous woman whose world is suddenly turned upside down, sacrifices everything for her man, and emerges bruised but chastened in the last reel.

However, since most thrillers thrive on the assumption that what you see is not what you get, you may sense, at least in the beginning, that what you see is not what really happens. The film opens with Josie being arrested on suspicion of murder. She says to a pair of detectives, "I don't want to speak with an attorney. I just want to tell the truth." So, the plot, as we have reason to believe it, is in fact a 100-minute flashback with Josie relating things purely from her side.

There are, however, at least half a dozen scenes in "Josie's account" that she is not even involved in. Details are revealed that she couldn't be privy to, yet, somehow, they become part of her narrative. Maybe she's omniscient and we just don't realize it. Miraculously, though, three major mechanisms at play prevent such plot holes from engulfing the film.

The first is the fast pacing and the heart-stopping suspense. The direction is slick, the photography handsome. Veteran cinematographer Haskell Wexler of the Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? fame crafts an effectively dark and edgy mood. Several of his memorable shots of small, moonlit country roads winding through a brooding forest are genuinely demonic.

The Potenza's beautiful house, straight out of the glossy pages of Vogue Living, almost makes the film worth seeing on its own. The gripping cat-and-mouse scene of Tony's demise is also a powerhouse in its own right. Filmed at night in the rain, the victim runs, stumbles, is shot again and again in a terrifyingly desperate spectacle.

The second is writer-director Amy Holden Jones' clever manipulation of our faith in Josie's integrity. Unlike recent thrillers with earth-shattering twists such as Primal Fear and The Usual Suspects, we know from the start who has been doing all the killing. Despite early cynicism as to Josie's credibility, the fact that things are consistently spelled out in a matter-of- fact and unequivocal way gradually precludes any need to feel otherwise.

The third is, if there should be any doubt about Josie's version of "the truth", the fact that it is carried out to the last reel simply doesn't leave us time for the real "truth" anymore. At least, that's the general assumption.

Mixed reaction

Thus the twist, taking place 10 seconds before the film ends, may draw a mixed reaction. To some, it may feel like a cheat. Somehow thrillers have a silent contract with the audience that some things can't be doubted even though others are subject to idiosyncrasy. When some of the sure things turn out to be tricks, that only makes it fun. But when everything is smoke and mirrors, it can be downright annoying, especially when you find out "who" did it but aren't told "how".

It is clear that Holden Jones has taken a cue from the ending of The Usual Suspects. But, there is a major difference. While everything in the 1995 thriller built logically to the big revelation, in The Rich Man's Wife nothing that we have seen matters at all. It is an ending which dupes the audience into believing they have been watching something unusually clever instead of something unusually lazy.

Still, the audacity of this ending doesn't detract from the film's better aspects. Comic actress Clea Lewis as Nora, the ex- wife of Josie's lover, is diabolically entertaining in a small but crucial role. Peter Greene's Wilson looks like a cross between Eric Roberts and Christopher Walken, and, having been typecast as a whacko in Pulp Fiction and Under Siege 2, he isn't exactly required to explore virgin territory. The two detectives in charge are clearly not the brainiest enforcers of the law, but they are original, heart-warming characters. Less successful, however, is Halle Berry, who delivered as monotonous a performance in her last film Losing Isaiah.

The Rich Man's Wife is Holden Jones' first venture into the realm of the thriller. She wrote the screenplays for Mystic Pizza and Indecent Proposal, and directed the laudable Love Letters. So, the film's smug pseudo-feminism comes as no surprise, although you will notice that it is this very thing she simultaneously salutes and spoofs in the end.

The material is no product of fertile imagination, of course.