Almost

Wendy (Rosanna Arquette) is a young woman obsessed with romance novels, but married to Ronnie (Bruce Spence), who worries all the time about his candy business. It's their tenth anniversary, and she's counting on tonight being the night he makes up for his negligence. She arrives at work in an office, and Deidre (Kerry Walker), a vicious, jealous coworker, bets the other workers that Ronnie won't phone his wife. Ronnie's car breaks down in the country, but when he calls to say he'll be late, Deidre answers the phone and pretends it's someone else. Wendy goes shopping and meets Jake (Hugo Weaving), a seductive stranger who is smitten with her at once, but she avoids him. On his way home, Ronnie is literally attacked by lightning, and seeks shelter in a rundown shack. He finds the squalor inspiring, and decides to improve it. Meanwhile, Wendy spends the night crying, while Deidre doubles her bet that things will get worse.

The next day, Ronnie phones Wendy at work, but his mysterious message, that he can't come home till he finishes what he's started, convinces her he's cheating on her. She leaves work and catches a bus, which happens to be driven by Jake. He asks her out, and she refuses, but when he sends her flowers at work the next day, she takes the day off and goes out with him for a champagne lunch and a dance in the rain. After Wendy refuses to join him for dinner, Jake sends couturier Pierre (Barry Jenkins) over with beautiful gowns for her, and she relents.

Later that night, he finds her in her bath and seduces her with champagne. Jake convinces Wendy to run away with him, but she catches him in the ballroom with an old flame, and as the other dancers and her coworkers argue with her about her choices and the romance novels she's reading, she finally pours champagne on Jake, and empties the ballroom of everyone but her and her coworkers. Ronnie runs in, aware of her infidelity. They argue about their marriage, and give it up for lost, but he insists on one last drive in the country. He shows her the shack, now a pristine 1950s-style diner (which, the film implies, he built by hand with nearby lumber--lighting, chrome, mirrors, plastic, and all--in a matter of days). She's thrilled--but it sinks into its swampland. She tells him it's okay--at least he tried--and they turn it into an underground dance joint out of her romantic fantasies, and tango happily ever after.

The kindest thing to say about ALMOST is that it does get better after the unbearable beginning--or maybe one just gets used to it. It's hard to believe that director Michael Pattinson helmed the gripping GROUND ZERO a few years back, except that Hugo Weaving is so clearly imitating Colin Friels throughout. The dialogue is atrocious, but the bigger problem with the screenplay is the intrusion of plot points that have nothing to do with the story: about worker's conditions, Australian food companies, Arquette's theft of a thousand dollars, and the supernatural hand of God in an otherwise simple romance!

The cast is fine--Weaving and Spence (a veteran Aussie character actor, best known to American audiences for 1981's THE ROAD WARRIOR, which he virtually stole from Mel Gibson) always are. Arquette continues to be unable to reclaim the substantial charm and talent she displayed in BABY, IT'S YOU and DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, but that might have been helped if the film had explained a few things--such as why a woman who complains "I've never been anywhere" has an American accent. (Profanity, adult situations.) leave a comment