Some ask why Diane Lane's character, a good woman with an attentive husband, would risk her whole life by having an affair with a much younger man. To feel young again? Lust? Excitement? Her husband, Richard gere, is portrayed as the kind of guy who would be open to honest communication that should have taken place before Diane Lane jumped in the sack with Paul. Obviously there was discontent in her life before she met the guy; no one goes from happily married to happily married plus one. And Gere had to have been tempted over the years. But he apparently never acted on those impulses and channeled his energy and emotions into his marriage.
So what's up with Lane? Having recently watched all ten episodes of GYPSY,with Naomi Watts, I can answer that: POWER. having a huge secret makes you feel powerful and excited and continually aroused, and your emotions aren't invested in one person, which is scary when you first get married. Lane has nothing of her own, no job, no money of her own to hide from her husband. So she feels she needs something of her own that will put a Mona Lisa smile on her face when not with her lover, with whom she can experiment sexually, try things she's be too embarrassed to try with Gere. POWER is what the affair gives her, and she is seduced by it. And that POWER consumes everything in her life.
Review of Unfaithful
