TODAY'S NUGGET: Unfaithful (2002) - Putting 2+2 Together Through Behavior

[Quick Summary: A happily married wife slides into an affair with an intriguing rare book dealer, and her husband finds out.]

This is a "cheatin' story," in common parlance.

However, this script is anything but common. 

First, it is a drama that does not rely on formulas or the tropes of a thriller or sci-fi:

That's what's intriguing about the film: Instead of pumping up the plot with recycled manufactured thrills, it's content to contemplate two reasonably sane adults who get themselves into an almost insoluble dilemma. - Roger Ebert (my emphasis)

Second, the characters "tell" us everything through behavior rather than dialogue:

Connie Sumner's heart and other organs have their reasons for straying outside a happy marriage in "Unfaithful,'' but the movie doesn't say what they are. This is not necessarily a bad thing, sparing us tortured Freudian explanations and labored plot points. It is almost always more interesting to observe behavior than to listen to reasons.  - Roger Ebert (my emphasis)

 In the scene below, I liked how the writers let the audience put 2 +2 together.

We see Connie +We see the young couple in love = We add up that this is the way Connie longs to feel.

ex. "INT. PARTY STORE - SOHO - AFTERNOON

Connie glances up at the ramshackle bank of black-and-white surveillance monitors hanging haphazardly near the ceiling. In one of them, a YOUNG COUPLE can been seen trying on funny hats and clowning with each other. Even watching the fuzzy monitors, Connie senses an electricity between them.

Slowly, she begins moving through the aisles, half shopping and half seeking the Couple. She keeps peering at the monitors, seeing herself in one and the Couple in another.  They move to another aisle, disappear from view, reappear on a different monitor.

She turns a corner, and there they are, only now they're no longer clowning but kissing. Nothing else exists for them except each other.

Then they pull apart and begin SIGNING to each other tenderly. Connie realizes that they are deaf."

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: It's so rare to have a gripping story about characters dealing with reality w/o special effects, car chases, explosions, and/or robots.

I think it also gives the story a timeless feel to it.

Unfaithful (2002)(6/14/00 draft)
by Alvin Sargent, William Broyles, Jr., Stephen Schiff
Based on the film "La Femme Infidele" (1969), by Claude Chabrol