Begegnungen (1994)

Begegnungen: Directed by Mark Rydell. With Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, Lolita Davidovich, Martin Landau. While driving on a remote highway, a man is torn between choosing to reunite with his estranged wife or taking up with his lover.

“Iu0026#39;m not quite sure what this movieu0026#39;s about. Iu0026#39;m not saying that I suspect that I missed some deep, subtle secret concealed within the narrative that only a select few will ever grasp (this, I assume, is true of the alleged comedy that Iu0026#39;ve missed in various u0026#39;comedicu0026#39; films) — rather, Iu0026#39;m just not entirely sure that this film delivers what it might have had it had a more coherent flow and some semblance of actually going anywhere. Not that that sentence that I just penned is a great example of those qualities, but I digress…u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe movie features fine performances from all involved, including Lolia Davidovich and Sharon Stone and the pretty-much-always excellent Richard Gere. Gereu0026#39;s character is convincing and real, but perhaps a tad too real because heu0026#39;s a pretty wishy-washy fellow and his is not the most compelling of roles. Then again, neither is anyone elseu0026#39;s, really. The two female leads get marginally more to wrap their skills around, but the whole is way less than the sum of its parts. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA 98-minute film, u0026quot;Intersectionu0026quot; seems a lot longer and I found myself calculating time-elapsed and time-remaining at more than one point. Hardly a good sign. Sure, there are no Ramboesque explosions and car chases (though a high-speed driving theme is at the movieu0026#39;s heart) but Iu0026#39;m not the type of male who has to have that kind of thing to keep me engaged. A story might be nice, though. I mean, a story that hangs together. In the absence of much direction, and in the presence of multiple and confusing layers of flashback, the actorsu0026#39; great work is sabotaged. It just doesnu0026#39;t really seem to go anywhere. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhen the film finished I felt the sentiment echoed in that old Peggy Lee song…u0026quot;Is that all there is?u0026quot; And I donu0026#39;t like Peggy Lee, darn it!”