(1981) On the coast of Florida north of Miami, a small-town lawyer, Ned Racine (William Hurt), strolling outside in need of tending on a sultry night, finds Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner), well-tended and married, who flirts with him just long enough.

Their next meeting inside a bar, when she complains of the heat from her engine, Ned suggests, "Maybe you need a tune up," to which she responds: "Don't tell me. You have just the right tool." He makes a recommendation: "You shouldn't wear that body." Following her home to see her wind chimes and then told to leave, he smashes a window to re-enter; she can't get enough of him. "No one must know," she warns him.

Her husband - "small, mean, and weak" but wealthy - she says she can't stand, comes home only on weekends. Taking advantage of the absences, Ned spends most nights over, but then one evening embarrassingly mistakes Matty's friend Mary Ann Simpson, stopping by on her way to Europe, for Matty.

"I wish he'd die," Matty says of her spouse; she'd signed a prenuptial agreement. Recklessly about to engaging in fellatio on the porch while Matty's young niece Heather is spending the night, they're interrupted by the little girl's unexpected appearance.

Accidentally encountering the Walkers in a restaurant, Edmund (Richard Crenna) invites Ned, whom Matty has introduced as a lawyer representing someone interested in their home, to join them, describing himself ("Gotta know the bottom line") as being involved in fiancé, venture capital, and real estate. Disliking Edmund intensely, Ned says to Matty: "We're going to kill him."

Much of the photography in director/writer Lawrence Kasdan's film-noirish thriller is at night or in the dark, accompanied by John Barry's atmospheric score. When Matty asks Ned to rewrite Edmund's will, which gives her only half his estate, the other half designated for Heather, Ned advises against doing anything rash that might attract suspicion afterward. But relentless Matty "could do whatever was necessary" for her purposes.

Ned resorts to arson. During a meeting with Edmund's attorney after his client's death to discuss a flaw in the will, making it invalid, when he asks permission from everyone in the room to light up a cigar, they all take out and ignite cigarettes, except Peter Lowenstein (Ted Danson), Ned's friend and fellow attorney, who declines to smoke: "I don't need my own; I'll just breathe the air." Later after jogging, Ned takes out a cigarette when he meets with Peter, who after saying that Edmund's demise is "a positive thing for the world," warns his friend: "Someone's putting you in deep trouble."

A nagging question for me at the end: What alternative method was employed at the boathouse?

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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