Stars don’t click as a couple in film about relationship

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, August 24, 2006

A man and a woman meet at a wedding reception, flirt outrageously, and decide to spend the night together.

But this situation in “Conversations with Other Women” is not as simple as it seems, and neither is the film’s approach. Director Hans Canosa presents the entire film in a split-screen format: two cameras running at all times, with (usually) the man and the woman on separate halves of the screen.

Hmm. Maybe Canosa is trying to tell us something about the division between male and female. Or just giving us a chance to study both faces during an extended conversation.

The man is played by Aaron Eckhart (lately of “Thank You for Smoking”), the woman by Helena Bonham Carter. Both performers are playing to their strengths: he’s flashing the buttery grin of a smarm merchant, while she has her trademark quick wit and skeptical attitude. If you like either of these actors, you might enjoy seeing them onscreen so much.

Their characters appear to be meeting at this wedding reception, with Eckhart the breezy American Casanova and Bonham Carter a reluctant target. But we soon learn that they have a past together, and their “flirtation” is just a complicated game.

Though they once had a past, each is currently otherwise occupied: she with an older husband, he with a much younger girlfriend. But those people aren’t here.

And so we make our way into a hotel room, where conversation seems likely to segue into bed. Meanwhile, the split-screen begins to accommodate flashbacks from the shared past of this couple, which is the most ingenious use of the gimmick.

In theory, I think it would be possible to find this scenario compelling, although Gabrielle Zevin’s script is short on surprises or urgency. But I had one big problem with the movie. As capable as Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter are, the two of them are utterly unbelievable as a couple.

She seems light years beyond his coarse vulgarisms, and I kept wanting to step in and tell them to give up, already. Movie-star chemistry continues to be one of the defining things about watching movies, and this conversation comes up short.

Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart star in “Conversations with Other Women.”