Afterglow
Director: Alan Rudolph
Year Released: 1997
Rating: 2.0
Two unhappily married couples (Jonny Lee Miller with Lara Flynn Boyle and Nick Nolte with Julie Christie) inadvertently swap partners - it turns out young tight-ass Miller needs a little mothering from Christie and tightly-wrapped Boyle needs a good dicking from a man who "doesn't smell like soap." That the action plays out like a comic book is probably intentional (Rudolph keeps cutting to Christie watching a younger version of herself in one of her character's "bad" "B-movie" roles) doesn't make Miller's droll line readings or Boyle pretending to be upset any easier to take - it also doesn't make the plot any less clunky. Christie and Nolte, on the other hand, appear to have a decent handle on the chicanery - call it age, experience, talent, or all of the above.
