A woman trapped in a boring marriage begins an affair with a handsome man who seems able to read her mind. She doesn't know that he has broken into her house and read her diaries, where she has recorded her deepest thoughts and fantasies.
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That was an excellent one.
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Blistering performances.
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
A woman trapped in a boring marriage begins an affair with a handsome man who seems able to read her mind. She doesn't know that he has broken into her house and read her diaries, where she has recorded her deepest thoughts and fantasies.....This had the makings of a brilliant eighties movie for me. Great producers, great musicians doing the score, and just made in the part of the eighties where everything was cool, and everybody lived in excess.So its unfortunate that this film for me sunk like a led balloon. Yes Bauer has the charisma and the looks, but he is awful as the lead, and his delivery of lines and the way he changes just ruins the whole movie.Is this really the guy I saw in Scarface? He was amazing in that movie.Plus the fact that the husband does the worst thing imaginable and tries to make a living rather than letting his wife seduce him. What's a girl to do? Caruso pops up every now and again, with lots of attitude and the soundtrack crashes in and out one several occasions, which is funny for all the wrong reasons.It's a cheesiest in a bad way, and thank goodness that the producers had Top Gun around the corner.This had all the makings of a cool little thriller, it just gets more mundane as the film progresses and Bauer is nothing but a miserable child in this movie.
This movie was bitterly panned upon its release, and I see a number of IMDB's reviewers agree with the original critics. I don't get it, except that this movie does such a good idea of taking you inside Stephen Bauer's character and what he is doing is so creepy that people react viscerally to him instead of the movie. The movie is engrossing, brilliantly photographed and well-paced. The camera angles and the chemistry between Bauer and Williams are reminiscent of what Hitchcock tried to do in Vertigo, but much less forced and contrived. All these characters behave in character. I really consider this one of the best romantic thrillers of all time. Yes, it is erotic. Why is that a bad thing? 10/10.
When we look back at the history of made-for-video films they'll say that this one started the erotic thriller fad. Ah, but if only they had natural redhead beauties like Barbara Williams instead of the man-made women we see today.To see David Caruso playing the same condescending stiff he has played his whole career, to see that Steven Bauer kept his career going despite this yawn of a film, to hear Williams say "I feel so violated!" or Norm Peterson say "It must be a holiday for the school suppliers." or to hear John Getz say "Dr. Seuss to the rescue." There is so much bad in this film I can see why Douglas Day Stewart is forgotten today.Finally, I must say I didn't think Unrated films existed in 1984; this one happens to have extra footage although it's very tame. I watched this one so you wouldn't have to. Stay away.
Though I do like this film, I found the concept immensely disturbing. Being a private person (you don't see my NAME on this, do you?), I found the idea that anyone could so completely invade a life absolutely terrifying. In spite of a few holes, the film works, chiefly because the characters enmesh the audience in their feelings. Steven Bauer is incredibly underrated as an actor and, while I have seen stronger performances from him, he's very good as the enamoured thief in search of a way out and Barbara Williams is credible as the neglected wife enchanted by the mystery man. Let's not leave out John Getz, another unexplainably underrated performer, as the self-absorbed husband. If you can ignore the flashy 80s style, the film is a fascinating study of obsession. Warning: it definitely deserves its R rating for unnecessary full nudity.