Betrayal (1983)

This is bit like reading a book from back to front, reading chapter nine before you read chapter one. That does present quite a quirky way to tell us a story, but by starting where we end it does rather rely on us being and remaining engaged with the characters if we are to stay with it. Sadly, despite some quite savage writing at times, I found it more like a series of self-obsessed ping-pong games between “Jerry” (Jeremy Irons) and his best friend “Robert” (Ben Kingsley] who is married to “Emma” (Patricia Hodge) with whom “Jerry” has been having an affair. What isn’t quite clear, initially, is just when the husband found out about the treachery around him but as we wind back, sequentially, we fill in a few of the gaps and I realised that I really didn’t rate any of these people as human beings on just about any level. That, sadly, is when I lost interest. It maybe doesn’t help that it is set in the rarified world of publishing, literary agents and high-ceiling abodes in London’s leafy Hampstead where the wine flows freely and the verbiage likewise. There are some pithy exchanges between the two men, exacerbated by us watching knowing what they, presumably, don’t about each other but again I found them entirely deserving of their lots in life. It has a very theatrical look to it - all it doesn’t have is the lights fading and the curtain dropping between scenes, and I found the pacing dragged down by some of their extremely repetitious conversations. “You remember? “No, I don’t”, “Of course you do”… Perhaps that very banality is expressive of the institution of marriage, or of cheating on the one you did marry, or want to marry, or won’t - but in the end, I was unconvinced by the thread of the story and by three actors who are all capable of much more potent performances.