I'm not sure if I'm writing a "spoiler" or not. The explanation is vague. I am going to say that the movie is poorly done, so if you don't want to be put off, don't read this critique. But I am not gong to reveal any secrets of the plot.
It struck me immediately that Van Johnson was completely wrong for this role. It should have been someone British like Trevor Howard or James Mason or Dirk Bogarde or John Mills. Some actor who could portray completely different kinds of character. Van Johnson was always good old, baby face, Van Johnson. He got the role so as to have a Hollywood glamour boy to sell tickets.
The whole beginning of the affair between Johnson's and Kerr's characters is too facile to believe for a second. Johnson meets Kerr only briefly at a large cocktail party where she is hostess flitting from guest to guest. I can't imagine him falling for her on the basis of a few sentences of (very) polite stilted conversation unless she were sensationally alluring which she most certainly was not. In addition, before he leaves the party, he sees her kiss another man (not her husband) through a partly open door. This would only make any normal man think she was a shameful tramp and want nothing to do with her. Who needs the hassle of an affair with a woman who already has a husband and a lover? Please take a number! In addition, if she were to kiss another man in her own home, she's hardly likely to do it in a room with the door open and visible to everyone who enters or leaves the house! But, despite this rapid sequence of most improbable events, lo! He has fallen for her.
Then, when they meet in a restaurant, he tells her right away that he saw her kissing another man. Any normal woman would take great offence at being so rudely unmasked but no, Kerr doesn't bat an eyelid. During this very early part of the film Kerr is pretty much a cold fish. She portrays an icy, polite, upper middle class Englishwoman and no American is going to be tempted by a woman like that. Further, I don't see her having any reason to fall for Johnson. He neither says not does anything either intelligent or charming.
Kerr and Johnson then proceed to spend lots of time together which is most unlikely to be achievable. Her husband would have to be a complete idiot not to wonder where on earth she was all the time. In addition Johnson is swanning in and out of Kerr's house, sometimes when the husband comes home. Again, in real life, any sane husband would smell a great big rat. When there's something going on between a spouse and another person, and they're in the same room with the other spouse, the other spouse can always tell. They know their spouse too well. The husband is a highly intelligent civil servant and yet is portrayed as a moron who hasn't a clue about what is going on.
The story itself is interesting enough and improves as the movie progresses. It poses the usual well known conundrums about God. Having never been religious or Catholic in her life, Kerr, at a moment of crisis, walks in to a Catholic church. In real life that is just not going to happen. Unfortunately, for me, the so called "affair" is a structure built on sand. There was never any initial foundation of passion between a man and a woman and hence there was never any credible affair.
The book is just a convenient vehicle for the stars and that will bring in the fans who want to see Van Johnson in a sob story. My tears are for Graham Greene.
It struck me immediately that Van Johnson was completely wrong for this role. It should have been someone British like Trevor Howard or James Mason or Dirk Bogarde or John Mills. Some actor who could portray completely different kinds of character. Van Johnson was always good old, baby face, Van Johnson. He got the role so as to have a Hollywood glamour boy to sell tickets.
The whole beginning of the affair between Johnson's and Kerr's characters is too facile to believe for a second. Johnson meets Kerr only briefly at a large cocktail party where she is hostess flitting from guest to guest. I can't imagine him falling for her on the basis of a few sentences of (very) polite stilted conversation unless she were sensationally alluring which she most certainly was not. In addition, before he leaves the party, he sees her kiss another man (not her husband) through a partly open door. This would only make any normal man think she was a shameful tramp and want nothing to do with her. Who needs the hassle of an affair with a woman who already has a husband and a lover? Please take a number! In addition, if she were to kiss another man in her own home, she's hardly likely to do it in a room with the door open and visible to everyone who enters or leaves the house! But, despite this rapid sequence of most improbable events, lo! He has fallen for her.
Then, when they meet in a restaurant, he tells her right away that he saw her kissing another man. Any normal woman would take great offence at being so rudely unmasked but no, Kerr doesn't bat an eyelid. During this very early part of the film Kerr is pretty much a cold fish. She portrays an icy, polite, upper middle class Englishwoman and no American is going to be tempted by a woman like that. Further, I don't see her having any reason to fall for Johnson. He neither says not does anything either intelligent or charming.
Kerr and Johnson then proceed to spend lots of time together which is most unlikely to be achievable. Her husband would have to be a complete idiot not to wonder where on earth she was all the time. In addition Johnson is swanning in and out of Kerr's house, sometimes when the husband comes home. Again, in real life, any sane husband would smell a great big rat. When there's something going on between a spouse and another person, and they're in the same room with the other spouse, the other spouse can always tell. They know their spouse too well. The husband is a highly intelligent civil servant and yet is portrayed as a moron who hasn't a clue about what is going on.
The story itself is interesting enough and improves as the movie progresses. It poses the usual well known conundrums about God. Having never been religious or Catholic in her life, Kerr, at a moment of crisis, walks in to a Catholic church. In real life that is just not going to happen. Unfortunately, for me, the so called "affair" is a structure built on sand. There was never any initial foundation of passion between a man and a woman and hence there was never any credible affair.
The book is just a convenient vehicle for the stars and that will bring in the fans who want to see Van Johnson in a sob story. My tears are for Graham Greene.