From the director of Notes on a Scandal comes the perfect love triangle. In The Other Man, Peter (Liam Neeson) and Lisa (Laura Linney) are settled in the comfort of their long-term marriage. Lisa is a successful shoe designer and Peter runs his own company. It is the night of the launch of Lisa's latest collection, and at dinner she seems evasive – and then odd. “Do you think two people can live together all their lives? Do you never wish you'd been given the chance to sleep with someone else?” she asks him. Then she is gone. Peter struggles to find answers, following a trail to Italy. There he meets Ralph (Antonio Banderas), a slick charmer who is plainly Lisa's lover. But Ralph has secrets of his own.
Director Richard Eyre has proven himself an expert in pursuing all the twists and turns that come with romantic obsession. Adapted from a short story in Bernhard Schlink's collection Flights of Love, The Other Man shows Peter's ravenous thirst for detail as he tracks the wife he thought he knew so well, reading her email, digging through digital photos, and finally finding Ralph in a café in Milan. There he withholds his knowledge of the affair and sits down with his quarry to pointedly symbolic games of chess.
Driven by a constantly advancing narrative and an evocative musical score by Stephen Warbeck, The Other Man offers all of the intense pleasures of the genre. Eyre also benefits from pitch-perfect performances, especially from Banderas, who is unsettling in his charm, and Neeson, whose haunted passion serves the story so well.
But The Other Man pushes beyond mere adultery. As the film progresses, it begins to probe the nature not simply of jealousy, but of loss and forgiveness. Still, even as the themes broaden, Eyre keeps the tension taut, allowing only glimpses of the lovers in lyrical, dream-like sequences, and setting those images against the relentless pace of Peter's chase. There is a unique emotional and aesthetic rush that cinema brings to stories of desire and obsession, accomplished through pacing, performance and tone. No one does it better than Richard Eyre.
Richard Eyre was born in Barnstaple, Devon, England. He has worked as a theatre, television, opera and film director, and was director of the Royal National Theatre from 1997 to 1998. His films include The Ploughman's Lunch (83), Loose Connections (83), Laughterhouse (84), Iris (01), Stage Beauty (04), Notes on a Scandal (06) and The Other Man (08).