SPOILERS AHEAD
Re-cap. Struggling in a
flailing marriage and a stultified yuppie existence, Richard and Priscilla
Parker (Kevin Kline and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), become drawn into the lives
of their new neighbours, Eddy and Kay Otis (Kevin Spacey and Rebecca Miller).
Eddy, correctly intuiting Richard’s attraction to Kay, and stating his own
attraction to Priscilla, suggests the men switch marital beds late one night.
Richard, initially resistant, soon relents…
Title. Consenting Adults (1992) misleads
its audience as abruptly as debauched financial adviser Eddy misleads our
“everyman”. The film's plotting follows the narrative ploy of Psycho
(1960): the shock murder, occurring near the film's midway point, that
immediately changes the game. The difference is that where Psycho
finally, spectacularly satisfied its title with such an event, the murder - and
subsequently revealed elaborate insurance scam - in Consenting Adults
derails all the sexual and interpersonal complexities its title seemingly
suggested. This is not necessarily a bad thing - it's an interesting experiment
to say the least - but it risks viewer revolt. The film's mixed reception
suggested as much. If the film had been titled, say, We Have New
Neighbours, a title that similarly can carry portent but is more supportive
of the other directions the film takes, it might have received marginally
better notices, a greater preparedness from critics and audiences to go along
for the ride. But Consenting Adults was filling a niche - the two
word-titled "middle-class paranoia" psychosexual thriller, an
especially popular sub-genre in the late Eighties /early Nineties.
Focus. Even with another
title, issues with suspension of disbelief would remain, as would contentions
that Alan J. Pakula, who typically directed in a lower key, was adhering to
some of the more feverish tenets of the sub-genre. Furthermore, disappointment
was voiced that Pakula, the social fabulist, seemed well subsumed, on this
occasion, by Pakula, the stylist. While the scamming and the yuppie angst
certainly carried contemporary social currents, the bells and whistles of Eddy
Otis' conspiracies, and Richard Parkers' struggles in extricating himself from
them, ultimately drives all.
Presumptions. Promotional materials
for Consenting Adults featured the taglines "Thou Shall Not
Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife" and "From the director of Presumed
Innocent". The former continues the deception of what the film will
be; it suggests punishment (generated through guilt? Shame? Stigma?
Retribution?) for one's sexual sins, but essentially the film is about being
spectacularly duped. Arguably the latter tagline supports the deception as
well. With Presumed Innocent (1990), Pakula's stock was back up, after
the triple "failures" of Dream Lover (1986), Orphans
(1987) and See You in The Morning (1989), all commendable films, except
at the bottom line. Pakula would have been an attractive proposition for the
film's studio, Hollywood Pictures; well-regarded and well-versed (during the
Seventies, and then with Presumed Innocent) in dark excursions into
sexuality, suspense and conspiracy - and well-remunerating studios in the
process. Pakula, for his part, appeared intrigued that Consenting Adults,
in its first passages, would possess themes very similar to those of Presumed
Innocent. By its midpoint, though, the audience would find themselves in a
Nineties updating of Hitchcock's 1951 classic, Strangers on a Train. It
was a good opportunity to shake up expectations.
Spacey. It is not
simply the fall-out from an illicit "criss cross" set up that
renders Consenting Adults strongly reminiscent of Strangers.
Spacey's Eddy Otis is a similar beast to Robert Walker's celebrated schemer,
which is to say, ingratiating and persistent. Pakula reportedly fought for
Kevin Spacey's involvement - recognition of Spacey was growing, but he was not
yet a box-office draw - and Spacey served Pakula's Hitchcockian ambitions
well. Eddy is borne of a distinctly theatrical mould. But more intriguingly, he
also exists within the broader Pakulian universe: Eddy could strike up a fine
rapport with Charles Durning and Frances Sternhagen's overbearingly
presumptuous brother and sister-in-law in Pakula's 1979 divorcing couples
comedy, Starting Over.
Games. Pakula noted
that a central theme of Consenting Adults concerns the
emptiness of the yuppie lifestyle, a striving so all-consuming that it leaves
people emotionally and intellectually undernourished, their mammalian instincts
towards danger blunted, and the machinations of a fairly obvious charlatan like
Eddy duly missed. Eddy scolds Richard for his avoidance of risk
(financially, but of course also sexually) and the concomitant deflation of his
spirit. Priscilla, emboldened by evidence of the rewards that Eddy's
risk-taking reaps, soon joins the chorus.
These events lead us
steadily towards the film's show stopping sequence: the men switching marital
beds in the early hours of the morning. The burdens of yuppiedom may nullify
thought, instinct and judgement; nonetheless, how can Richard assume that Kay,
even in a midnight drowse, would not recognise a different body drawing up
against her, different hands caressing her? (Need I extrapolate further?)
The critical knives
sharpened. And yet there’s a crucial detail, and really a very interesting one,
that is often played down in critical conjecture: Eddy has planted another seed
in Richard's mind (with the assistance, however reluctantly, of Kay), that the
women subconsciously want this to happen. Richard clearly
takes stock in Eddy's presentation of worldly knowledge. As we find after
Richard has been framed for Kay's murder, he believes that Priscilla had also
been implicitly pushing him towards the night of wife-swapping, to seemingly
prove his risk-taking masculinity; that he, like Eddy, is also a man "in
the game". It's a strong reveal of Richard's unspoken assumptions of
his wife, as well as a firm indication of the extent to which his frustrations with
the banality of his work and his very existence - with Eddy's orchestrated
goading escalating it all - have infiltrated his perceptions.
Nightmare. The second half
almost exclusively becomes Richard’s quest to reveal the criminal machinations
and clear his name. This is his nightmare – and it firmly
becomes the film's propulsion. That Kline is an eminently watchable actor,
and makes a very engaging “everyman” (like he did in the previous year’s Grand
Canyon) plays to the film’s strength. By contrast, while the film’s first
half suggested character trajectories for Priscilla and Kay, in the second half
they are practically shrouds. They are there for Richard to (re)discover and
confront. What we discover of their motivations is only a) what Richard
directly discovers in his strained contact with them, or b) through what other
characters tell Richard. They are not given substantial individual moments of
explanation (in contrast, say, to Kim Novak's flashback and voiceover
letter-writing in 1958’s Vertigo). It is fair that one could feel
irritated by the lack of explication, but such a creative decision stays true
to the maxim: the second half is one man’s nightmare, where the people he (and
we) knew in his life suddenly exit the picture and seem strangers to us when we
see them next.
Style. Overall, Consenting
Adults is heady, melodramatic material. Given that Pakula's impulses
typically veer toward something opposite, a simmering broodiness, it seems legitimate
to ruminate on his appropriateness for the job. But Pakula's impulses are also
what makes the film interesting, and, as evidenced by The Parallax View (1974)
in particular, Pakula is an excellent stylist; here, he takes the sordid
details and realises them cinematically with seemingly incongruous slow, steady
camera pans and dollies. For a commercial pic, the style is dangerously
experimental. And yet it plays perfectly with the many dawning realisations
that occur throughout the film. (Think of the camera dollying backwards as
Richard realises the true intent of Eddy’s conspiracy.) And the slow pans
become a game in themselves, always leaving us wondering what images we will
settle upon.
Shock. Pakula still knows how to deliver a
shock, back like he did in the Seventies. There’s careful preliminary work that
goes into these. To wit, in the pre-credits scene, we view Richard's demeaning
struggles and reduced ambitions as a composer, where even a television jingle
is the source of great angst. (Examples of the flatness and quiet frustration
afflicting the Parkers thus commences.) A reel or so in, though, and with Eddy
starting to spark Richard's flagging spirit, we return to another day at the
recording studio, but this time with an easier-going Richard bringing the
desired verve to the jingle. Then, with said jingle still playing triumphantly
on the soundtrack, we observe Richard and Priscilla driving out of their work
carpark, noticeably more relaxed and engaged than we've seen them thus far ... only for a man to step into their path and into their windscreen. Pakula chooses the Parkers
moment of heady, regained confidence to throw a beautifully orchestrated shock
our way.
Uzi. The film's climactic scenes depict
Richard infiltrating Eddy's home, semi-commando style, and Eddy stalking
Richard with an Uzi. The Uzi would seem over-the-top .... if anyone but Eddy
was holding it. (There's a nice suggestion that Eddy is as absurdly paranoid
about the retribution of the scammed as he is ultra-confident and ambitious in
his scamming.) The florid details of the finale, like so much of the film,
seem of a piece with Strangers on a Train. While it is, in conception, a
fairly generic confrontation, Pakula freshens the details with the
sinister slow pans, as well as the extreme close ups of Spacey and the Uzi. And
it's an appropriate detail for another of his terrorised women to deliver the
knockout blow.
Coda. With Eddy vanquished, Richard and
Priscilla comforting one another, and the soothing strains of Pakula's regular
composer, Michael Small, reassuring us all is well, we cut to the grid lock
that greeted us in the film's opening. Richard and Priscilla have resumed the
work commute; but this time, they listen to the radio commentator announcing
Richard's acquittal. We watch them drive into their new neighbourhood,
only to be greeted by removalists next door and a new neighbour all-too-eager
to engage in conversation - and get the measure of them. Richard and Kay
exchange but a look that tells us their past experiences will wisely inform
their new. Happier times - and more containable neighbourly relationships
- seemingly ahead. Then, fade out, with a popular singer of the time crooning
about keeping one's eyes wide open and not taking things (and people) for
granted. All is well.
Well, except that the
last bit in the new neighbourhood, with the end credits song, is a figment of
my imagination. It didn't happen, I'm happy to say. It could have. We could
have gone with the reassuring coda; after all, "the monster" of Consenting
Adults is dead. (Oh yes, Richard transgressed, but "the
monster" was tempting him.) Like with 1987's social phenomenon, Fatal
Attraction, it appears that the filmmakers adhere to the broad strokes of a
conclusion, while stealing the odd ambivalent shot for themselves. With the
final shot of Fatal Attraction, set in the wake of the femme
fatale's destruction, the cheating husband and his loyal wife embrace, and as
they exit screen right the camera zooms in on a happy photo of the
family. And the credits roll. It's a remarkably effective coda,
generating genuine pathos in its irony. The family will forever struggle.
Forever, in fact, does not seem the operative word. They will struggle before
they disassemble.
Consenting Adults offers a nice
companion piece: we are given a reprise of the film's musical string motif
- evoking a peaceful, desirous slice of Americana – but the Parkers, rather
than taking another drive through a family-bustling,
sun-bathed neighbourhood, instead approach their new house, cleverly
revealed by an aerial shot to be situated in the middle of nowhere. There's not
another house in sight. It's a grandiose joke, and it undercuts "happily
ever after" and "all is resolved" in one long sweeping shot. In
fact, it's a shared joke with any audience member who has contemplated the
inevitable end-point of paranoid thrillers, and it is perhaps the best
self-reflexive moment the sub-genre offers. Killing the external threat will
not neutralise the trauma and all that follows in its wake. And the Parkers, in
their consequent distrust, have underestimated their own social needs. While The
Parallax View has a far less conventional resolution, Consenting Adults
shares with it a trenchant coda.
Divisions. Ebert liked it;
Maslin didn’t; the reviewers at Washington Post were divided. All for
the reasons stated, or alluded to, above. In the shadow of such contention, the
overall consensus is that Consenting Adults is a lesser work in Pakula’s
oeuvre. You can go with the twist, or reject it. You can go with the seemingly
abrupt re-focus, or reject it. You can find yourself wishing the women were
offered the opportunity to explain themselves, or feel sufficiently swept up in
the new world Richard finds himself. You can be struck with disappointment that
Pakula delved into this sub-genre, or feel intrigued by his take on it.
Personally, I enjoy the film whenever I re-visit it. It's certainly Hitchcock
through the lens of Pakula, and it epitomises an odd but welcome little
category called "the hypnotic potboiler". Its poor notices are
understandable. But so, indeed, are the good.
Fable. Second thoughts, though, perhaps Consenting Adults is a social fable: beware the
charlatan – the smoothie – for his ambitions, and his low view of your
integral worth, are much larger than you give him (dis)credit for.
Published 16 July 2016
Published 16 July 2016