User Reviews

Admittedly, I tuned into this in the hopes of seeing some beefcake shots of James Brolin. Unfortunately, there was only one, early on, and the rest of the movie was very tame, and ultimately made little sense.

The story, what there is of it, centers on Nick and Julie Atkins, a couple whose marriage of many years is beginning to grow stale. Nick, a successful businessman is focused on work to the point of neglecting Julie, who tries to fill the void by going back to school. Julie's longing for the passion that she and Nick had early in their marriage begins to take shape in the form of powerful sexual fantasies which block out reality for minutes at a time, causing her to do things like burning breakfast and misplace her husband's papers. At first she fantasizes about her husband, but as the movie progresses, she begins to fantasize about other men, and about encounters with random strangers whom she meets. This culminates in her acting out her fantasies with disastrous consequences for her marriage. Can she and her husband rebuild their relationship? Is it worth saving?

This could have been an interesting premise, but the execution is so bland that you wonder why they even bothered. Characters aren't developed. Motives aren't explained. Background information isn't given. No exploration is made of how Julie got to the point where she couldn't control herself, and no explanation is offered as to how she will do so in the future. The end product is a muddled mess which is just as confusing as Julie's fantasies, which are surprisingly underdeveloped.

The acting is a mixed bag. Donna Mills as Julie does well with the material she is given, although her continual self pity does become strident after awhile. James Brolin acts as though he is reading his lines from cue cards, and even his anger over his wife's infidelity is hard to buy into, he shows so little passion over the whole issue. The supporting roles are mostly forgettable.

Disappointing treatment of what could have been an interesting story. More's the pity, since it doesn't even offer the eye candy it promised.

Julie Atkins has been married for 15 years to Nick (James Brolin, I really had forgotten he was in this movie!) who's a very busy man always in business meetings and trips (it's not clear what he does for a living, but he works hard to keep their lifestyle).

As a housewife she's bored. She and her husband used to be seen by others as "Barbie and Ken", and she misses the old days of young lust, adventures and passion. At the same time, she attends college to get a diploma in Special Education. Apparently, she's good with kids, but she's always distracted which makes difficult to retain theory.

Nick is very aloof of her wife's attempts to revive their relationship that has become stale and very domestic. Julie starts daydreaming with sexual fantasies that are really hilarious because Donna Mills doesn't show one bit of skin. There's nothing steamy about them. As if they're porn inspired (smoking environment, hot guys with chiseled features, heavy sax in the background, etc.), but she's still dressed from head to toe.

Due to her constant daydreaming, she burns the breakfast, floods the kitchen while washing the dishes, almost crashes her car.

The script is really cheesy. The only thing Julie comes up with is "fear" every time someone is asking what is wrong with her, including her therapist (Cicely Tyson). I mean, if you're not honest with your own therapist who's there to listen to your darkest thoughts, so then, who else can help you?

By the time she goes back to therapy, she already started acting on those sexual fantasies and can't stop. I'm not sure whether she wants romance or just wants to have sex with other men...because in the end, that's all what she gets from her lovers: one-night stands. She seems to be a sex addict? Plus, we don't see a change from the supposedly "frumpy" wife to a sexier wife now that she gets more attention from men.

It is as if production or the suits couldn't let this movie be about a woman who wanted to explore her sexuality, and they tried to fix it hinting that Julie only misses her husband's attention (there's a pathetic scene in a restaurant when she tries to tell him that the man at the next table is flirting with her just get him jealous).

Anyway, it's good '80s nostalgia. Don't ask for quality, just dive into it.

**insignificant spoilers**

I caught this movie on one of them Encore channels (Love, I think). It is obviously a made for TV movie, which I realized about 15 minutes into it and decided to keep watching regardless of the failure to deliver on the promising plot (housewife has numerous sexual fantasies that drive her crazy).

First and foremost, the point which I am convinced this movie makes (rather purposefully or not, most likely not) is to stress the importance of masturbation for women too. Now if you aren't that kind of girl, then don't worry about it. But, in this movie it's pretty obvious that she would save herself a lot of problems if she decided to act out these fantasies by herself, if you know what I'm saying.

Like I said in the header, this cheesy, badly-written movie has many good ideas that really make you think: The importance of paying attention to your significant other, even after so many years of marriage. The real possibility of growing apart as you grow older. The significant change one could have from being a free, careless spirit to being an ambitious, career-driven, blue-and-brown suit wearer (you grow up and you calm down and you're working for the clampdown). But, of course, the biggest point is coming to terms with yourself and stop ignoring and shying away from who you are, because it only makes things worse. If you're husband isn't satisfying you and you can't control them urges, then you probably need some alone time (do I need to add: wink, wink). Being a male it has at least made me think about growing older (my lowering of hormones, and the girl who hopefully will be my wife at the time will gain them as is natural in growing old). It reminds that I'm gonna have to work harder at it some 15 years from now, and if I can't live up to her needs, then I should encourage her to do what I do now to keep MYself from going crazy.

Well I've said the good, here's the bad: This movie is hokey. You'd expect if you had fantasies that made you go crazy and hallucinate and cause paralyzing daydreams, then you'd probably be having some crazy fantasies. But her fantasies are really trite. Wow, you're day-dreaming about another muscle-bound guy with perfect teeth and good hair. What? Come on, this was made in the 80's, the time period where you, finally, could've gotten away with putting a lot more spice in your movies. I spent the movie waiting for her to fantasize about someone else; being an American I was already bored with all the other guys she dreamt about. Why not that black guy? Why not a woman? Well, okay, now I'm letting too much of my guy out, but is it too much to ask that maybe she has an interesting fantasy?

The other irritating part is that, for the benefit of story-telling purposes, the characters had to be extra-stupid and helpless. "I can't control my fantasies! What do I do? I'm so alone and frightened!" Why was she frightened? Is she frightened of the fantasies becoming reality? Is she scared that she prefers fantasy over reality and she doesn't want to be like that? If she has such a problem, why does she put such little effort into solving her problem? She's just a helpless poor girl? Is that it? And the dude in the movie is at times just as bad. Jeez, could you ignore her just a little more? Isn't it obvious she has a problem? You end up feeling bad for the guy by default. Sure he does have a large role to play in her having problems, but she just gets stupid by the end of the movie and it becomes obvious that she cares about his emotions and problems even less than he cares about hers. Combine this with the fact that she messes around with numerous other guys and doesn't even stop after he finally catches her and we have to feel bad for the guy, even though he has a lot of faults of his own. He goes through enough of her crap that, in the last 20 minutes or so of the movie, we are waiting in rabid anticipation for him to lose his mind and explode on her. Honestly, I don't condone domestic violence, but by the end of the movie I was screaming at the television for him to knock her stupid *ss across the room and if it were me in that position, person-to-person (instead of man-to-woman), I would've punched her right in the face. Fact of the matter is it would be hard for ANYbody to feel sorry for this woman. Is she really a terrible person? No, she's just an idiot, an intolerable idiot.

But like I said before, there's many good reasons to watch this movie. None of it have anything to do with the movie itself, just the ideas involved in the movie. Just like there are plenty of fantastic movies out there with no real thought-provoking ideas (Quentin Tarantino movies come to mind), there are plenty of terrible movies with some thought-provoking ideas which should be watched too. This is one of them.

****Spoilers if you can find the story****

To start with, Donna Mills is about as convincing as a promiscuous wife as Shirley Temple would be as a hooker. The plot is the old "bored wife tries new lover" routine while hubby is busy making a living. The problem here is that you just can't bring yourself to believe it. Julie Atkins (Donna Mills) begins entertaining herself with romantic and sexual fantasies that she eventually begins acting out. When her husband (James Brolin) catches her in bed with another man he leaves her and she seems mystified as to why.

This has to be the most poorly written, acted and casted movie I have ever seen. Donna Mills as an unfaithful wife just doesn't work. She goes through the entire movie covered from neck to ankles and never raises her voice above a whisper. Movies of this genre should show some passion and emotion. In this one you can never be really sure that any illicit love making has taken place even though it entire premise is based on the fact that it has. It reminds one of the pictures of the forties and fifties when the Hayes office was in control of the camera.

The ending was at least a little more realistic than many movies of this genre in that Nick, the husband, gets really p***ed off and we hope will not forget and forgive, though they did leave that possibility.

****Minor Spoilers****

First of all, I love Donna Mills. She is sweet, beautiful and too good to be true. Especially as an adulterous wife. It would be easier to picture Shirley Temple as a hooker. In this movie Donna plays the part of a childless wife of fifteen years who begins having promiscuous sex with randomly picked strangers. When her husband catches her in bed with one of them she shows no reaction at all. She just lays there looking at him like "what are you doing here"? She goes through the entire movie covered from head to toe in clothes that come close to the concept of the "burkas" of the middle east. How can a woman be promiscuous, adulterous and faithless and never show any skin? But then, how could she be Donna Mills and show any? I stuck it out to the end of the movie but have to give it a rating of 2/10.