| The Other Man | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Richard Eyre |
| Produced by | Frank Doelger Michael Dreyer Tracey Scoffield |
| Written by | Richard Eyre Charles Wood Bernhard Schlink (short story) |
| Music by | Stephen Warbeck |
| Cinematography | Haris Zambarloukos |
| Editing by | Tariq Anwar |
| Release date(s) | December 3, 2008 (New York and Los Angeles) |
| Country | UK USA |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $970,157 (worldwide) |
The Other Man is a British-American movie directed by Richard Eyre. It stars Liam Neeson and Antonio Banderas as competitors for a woman's love (Laura Linney).
In Cambridge, Lisa (Linney) is a shoe designer, happily married for the last 25 years to Peter (Neeson), a software developer. They have a daughter, Abigail (Ramola Garai). Lisa frequently travels to Milan to do business with the Gianni & Gianni Company.
The story then moves forward an unspecified amount of time, where Lisa has died. Peter is rooting around his house, in an attempt to rid himself of Lisa's stuff, to help deal with the grief. Abigail takes one of her mother's shoes and pulls a piece of paper out of it, saying it was for Peter to find. On the paper is written "Lake Como". Soon after this, Peter finds a strange message on her cell phone from a man, wishing only to hear Lisa's voice. It creates a tension in the mind of Peter and he decides to check her e-mails and finds several similar requests in there too. He also finds a secret folder named “Love” on her Desktop which is password protected. It creates a strong suspicion in his mind that she had a secret love affair and that her lover is mailing her now. He tries to open the folder by breaking the password for several days, but in vain.
He replies to the mails of “Ralph” pretending to be Lisa. He requests one of his trusted co-workers to find out the real name & exact location of the sender of these e-mails by tracing down his IP Address, through his email address, which is an offence. His co-worker tells him that Rafe’s real name is Ralph (Banderas), who lives in Milan. Peter continues to try to access the "love" folder on Lisa's computer, and becomes increasingly frustrated. In anger he types "Lake Como" and when he applies that as the password, the folder it opens. It contains thousands of her photos & videos with Ralph in their passionate moments & near “Lake Como” where she first met Ralph.
In order to find out more about his wife's lover, he secretly locates and follows Ralph in Milan. He then goes to a Milanese Cafe, one of Ralph's haunts, and begins to play chess alone. Ralph engages him in conversation, and they begin to play chess and talk. Ralph easily speaks about Lisa & their relationship, unaware that Peter is Lisa's husband. Ralph tells him that it is he who has suggested she start a Shoe designing business after perceiving her unique understanding of shoes and her passion towards different new designs, which this industry lacks. Over a period of time, they play several games of chess and, as far as Ralph is concerned, have a friendship.
Abigail learns of her mother's affair, while listening to her mother's voicemail, and deduces her father's frightening obsession with vengeance. She goes to Milan and tries to convince her father to stop hunting for Lisa’s lover as she had already gone, as well as to accept her husband George (who is a poor music player). She also warns him that his craziness will lead him to lose everything (including his daughter, career and friends).
Peter becomes greatly upset and he goes uninvited, with murderous intent, to Ralph's apartment. There, to his surprise, he learns that Ralph is not the cosmopolitan man of the world as he has been portraying himself, but an impoverished janitor. Peter's hate diminishes, but not his urge to avenge. He sends an e-mail, as Lisa, to Ralph, asking that he meet her at Lake Como. Ralph tells Peter about his upcoming meeting, and Peter gives him money to enable the meeting. Ralph also plans to throw a party for Lisa in London, as he sees this latest meeting as a sign that their relationship is taking off.
Ralph goes to Lake Como, but instead of finding Lisa there, Ralph finds Peter waiting for him, and Peter reveals to Ralph that he was Lisa's husband, and that Lisa is actually dead. Ralph tells Peter that Lisa had known about his humble origins and poor socio-economic background. She also helped him financially on several occasions. He also forces Peter to confront that it is his excessive devotion for his work & cold nature towards marital life, which had moved Lisa to seek warmth in Ralph's arms, but still loving Peter so much that she never was ready to leave him, in spite of cheating with Ralph. Throughout this conversation, it is shown through flashbacks that Lisa died of Cancer, and that she did not tell Peter about it until 'it was too late'.
It is then revealed that, when Lisa was about to die due to critical illness, she wrote something on a piece of paper and asked her daughter to put it in her red shoes so that one day Peter would find it. But Lisa instructs Abigail not to tell him about the letter. Abigail asks how he would find the message when he doesn't even know about its existence, but she replies that he will definitely look for it and find it on his own one day. This is the piece of paper with "Lake Como" on it from earlier.
When Ralph asks her to tell Peter about their affair, end their marriage and move in with him, Lisa refused, saying that she did not want to hurt Peter and make him endure the pain of separation. She promised to reveal her dark secret to Peter at the appropriate time in her life so that he can forgive her for her infidelity. Peter and Ralph part, with Peter seemingly more bitter and angry than ever.
Ralph has arranged a dinner in Lisa's memory, and at first, Peter refuses to go. However, he realizes that “forgiveness and love need to replace hate”, and arranges to be at the dinner with Abigail and her husband. Traveling home after the dinner, we see Peter reconciled with George, Abigail's husband.