Trailer
Plot summary
Connie Sumner lives in an upscale part of Westchester County, New York, with her husband Edward and their eight-year-old son, Charlie. Her home and family are comfortable, but she wants more. While she is shopping in SoHo, a gust of wind knocks her into Paul Martel, a young Frenchman, and the two of them fall to the ground. Paul takes her up to his apartment, ices her knee, and rests his hand on hers. Before she leaves he presses a book on her, pointing out a passage that urges her to seize the moment. At home she opens it and finds his phone number written inside. Connie calls him, and he asks her to return. The third time she comes to his apartment, they dance together and then have sex.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Unfaithful (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The studio wanted the Sumners rewritten with a bad marriage and no sex, to create greater sympathy for Connie; Gere and director Adrian Lyne opposed the change, Lyne saying, "I wanted two people who were perfectly happy. I loved the idea of the totally arbitrary nature of infidelity."
- George Clooney turned down his role to star in Ocean's Eleven, and Jennifer Lopez was offered the role of Connie but turned it down because she felt the script "wasn't great"; in a 2025 interview with Howard Stern she said the decision still 'haunts' her.
- Smoke was piped into the set for 18 to 20 hours a day. Gere remembers: "Our throats were being blown out. We had a special doctor who was there almost all the time who was shooting people up with antibiotics for bronchial infections." Lane acquired an oxygen bottle to survive.
- Lyne wanted Gere and Lane to gain weight to portray the comfort of a middle-aged couple; in particular he wanted Gere to gain 30 pounds, and left donuts in the actor's trailer every morning.
SPOILER
Lyne shot five different endings to Unfaithful based on his experiences with Fatal Attraction, whose initial ending was rejected by the test audience; the studio did not like the "enigmatic" ending he chose, which they felt failed to punish crimes committed by the characters.- To prepare for the initial love scene between Paul and Constance, Lyne had the actors watch clips from Fatal Attraction, Five Easy Pieces, and Last Tango in Paris.
