Product: Unfaithfully Yours (1984)
Rating: 5.0
Dudley Moore at his best
If you find Dudley Moore to be a very funny guy you will love this movie. Apart from "10" this is the "must have" Moore comedy. He, along with Nastassja Kinski and Armand Assante go through a myriad of scenarios involving the perception of infidelity. The cast is further enhanced by Albert Brooks and Richard Libertiny. Moore plays a middle-aged composer/conductor named Claude Eastman, Assante plays his best friend and famous violinist Max Stein. Nastassja Kinski plays Moore's wife Daniella who is about half Claude's age. The plot revolves around a lot of misunderstandings and misreadings between the main characters resulting in Claude's convictions about his wife and Max having an affair. Brooks' character is named Norman and is married to Carla (Cassie Yates). Libertiny plays Guiseppe who as Claude's buttler is hilarious with is thick Italian accent. Norman misunderstands Guiseppe and hires a private-eye to keep tabs on Daniella. He figures that is what his pal Claude wanted when in reality all he wanted was for him to look after her. Claude in turn gets a report from the private-eye who himself misconstrudes the information. Armed with what he thinks is proof, Claude sets a plan to get rid of his infidel wife and her lover (Assante). What happens after that is the juxtaposition of the events as Claude planned them and how they really turn out. The humor is silly and yet very clever. Moore's performance is fantastic as he plays another scene where his character is drunk (a la Arthur and very funny). My favorite scene happens in the kitchen and involves Moore and Assante (I will not reveal it so that you see it for yourselves). Brooks is well suited to play Norman against Yate's Carla who ends up being the one who starts it all. In all, the movie plays very well, is one of my all-time-favorite comedies and it could not have been casted any better. It almost feels as if the cast lived together for a while in order to nail their characters as well as they did. Films like this are hard to come by these days. Hollywood seems to concentrated in putting a lot of money and effects in their fare leaving films like this to smaller independent outfits. The movie also keeps a pretty high decorum regarding the handling of sexual themes. Once again, content over hype. This film prooves that you don't have to get rauchy or rely on gross-out humor to be funny. I highly recommend this film.