Conversations with Other Women

A film where nothing "happens” except for really good conversation, the kind that makes you cringe and reach deep into your memory to try to explain the choices and decisions you made in the past, has promise, especially when the camera is capturing the faces of Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter having said interactions. Put them in split screens the entire time and have the camera tell the story from different angles and perspectives, and the hopes ascend even more. But this is what disappoints most about Conversations with Other Women: it is a film with much potential that lacks the magic touch to make it all work together. Eckhart and Carter are drunk at a wedding and limp up to Carter’s hotel room together where they spend one night together. That is enough time for us to learn about their past, something the story reveals slowly through cheesy flashback scenes in the other half of the split-screen. The most annoying aspect of the flashbacks is that Carter and Eckhart’s characters are portrayed as modern day young lovers, rather than being placed in the early ’80s as one would expect. They have both moved on to other relationships that make them feel secure and loved but lack the passion and excitement of their young marriage. However, there is little to convince them, or the audience, that they should get back together. Eckhart’s character is charming and enticing, at first, but his pathetic and angry attempts to get under Carter’s skin simply don’t work and solidify her decision to return to her husband after their brief tryst. I wish the conversation was better, the flashbacks didn’t exist and that we were given some more information about these people. (Sony)