What do you get when you combine two Oscar nominees, one Golden Globe nominee, an up-and-coming young talent, and the director of the brilliant "Notes on a Scandal"? Apparently, to my intense surprise, you get a lifeless and poorly-crafted thriller...well, a thriller in name only, since there are no thrills and no compelling story to speak of. To call it a disappointment would be one of the year's gravest cinematic understatements. "The Other Man" is not merely disappointing; it is rather a travesty, as we are essentially watching three great actors and one great director flounder in a film that is simply bad in just about every aspect. Starting from the ground floor, the screenplay is spineless and unappealing, attempting to tell a potentially intriguing story in a lazy and clumsily-executed way. It rarely calls for the characters to do anything more than go through the motions and talk about insignificant things for extended periods. When it unveils its two big twists, it does so with a fizzle rather than a bang—an arduous, painful fizzle.
Review of The Other Man
