Connecting through their loneliness and self-pity, Charles and Lucinda embark on an illicit affair. But as we all learned from Fatal Attraction, a moment of extra-marital comfort can come at a very high price. And almost as soon as they fall into each others arms, the cheating pair is forced to start paying their tab.
Owen and Aniston both turn in fine performances as Charles and Lucinda. We identify with their weariness and can’t help but like them even though we don’t like what they’re doing. But the real payoff for the price of admission is veteran French actor Vincent Cassel. As Derailed’s sadistic Euro-trash bad guy he is at once repellent and beguiling, believable both as an oily thug and a refined businessman.
Though Derailed starts out slow (you may even think you’ve stumbled into another post-modern, anti-marriage downer like Closer), Cassel’s arrival picks up the pace, and the film becomes the kind of tense mystery Barbara Stanwyck might have starred in during the 1940s (minus the sex scenes of course).
So if you’re growing a bit weary of the season’s oh-so earnest Oscar contenders wearing their serious artistry on their sleeves, this slick little thriller that has no aim other than to entertain may be just what the doctor ordered.
Just make sure you don’t watch that trailer.