Paul Schrader's Forever Mine tells a not-very-compelling, still-less-credible story of love, betrayal, and retribution. A cabana boy (Joseph Fiennes) at a Florida beach resort falls hard for a gorgeous guest (Gretchen Mol) neglected by her wheeler-dealer husband (Ray Liotta). After a steamy nude scene and a sweet, barefoot date, Fiennes follows her home to New York and declares undying love. Mol, a good Catholic girl who reads Madame Bovary, confesses the affair to Liotta. Being shadier than she realizes, he arranges to have nasty things befall his rival. Cut to 14 years later (though in fact the movie has been shuffling time periods since the beginning): Fiennes, long presumed dead, resurfaces to lend his talents (he's become a master criminal) to the now thoroughly corrupt Liotta and see what his beloved is up to. Fiennes has a new name, and a scar on one side of his face, so neither recognizes him. You don't have a problem with that, do you? Nonrecognition is always a tricky proposition in movies, but Forever Mine's problems don't end there. Fiennes, sans Shakespeare in Love beard and Bardlike charisma, doesn't begin to suggest a guy who'd inspire obsession. His costar's attempt at creating a soul sister to Emma Bovary is as underacted as it is underwritten, and Liotta's husband is just a lout, despite a desperate stab at giving him a virtually literary sensitivity regarding his romantic one-upping. You want a spellbinding Schrader movie about outré passion and literary mystery, look up The Comfort of Strangers. --Richard T. Jameson
