Married John Mullany (Gallagher) is having an affair with his wife's sister Cynthia (Giacomo) whilst the arrival of his old friend creates problems.

When looking at romantic hits in the last 20 years we have seen a fair share of ups and downs. From the clichéd look at happiness and love in Richard Curtis' Love Actually to the intimate look at how friendship affects relationships in Rob Reiner's When Harry met Sally we have seen highs and lows at an important part of how love and lust affect our lives. Recently the trend has lowered where everything is set in stone such as Hitch or Intolerable Cruelty. Good films with humour but an inevitable conclusion. So where does Steven Soderbergh's picture rank?

If, in the first half an hour, you become bored with the obvious predictability and over dramatic inclusion of Andie MacDowell's marriage then just think of this as build up for something mercifully better. This opening with MacDowell's protagonist Ann conversing with her therapist is frankly boring. Then we see her husband having an affair with her very own sister. So already this feels like an episode from Coronation Street. Graham's introduction though at first ultimately boring becomes interesting once we see his bizarre hobby.

Finally the script all starts to make sense. This boring build up layers the foundation for Grahams' inclusion and the implication of sex and the significance of happiness in adversity. Sex is the most covered topic out of the three keywords but for some reason we barely see any so the fact that it is debated so much but shown minimally begs the question of the significance and the lack of enthusiasm for it.

Nevertheless there is no shaking the subject is relative, whilst combining mildly interesting plots about affairs, unemployment and perversion.

Yes, it's soapy and you pick up clues as easy as Graham picks up women but this is almost irrelative thanks to a sharp performance by Spader. He steels the light in every scene, though hardly difficult next to MacDowell's egregious act at loneliness. Gallagher and Giacomo have their moments too.

During the opening stages the sound does not go in sync with the actors. The constant use of narration is overplayed and just seeing all these problems with the production does not help the film's supposed cause to preach and entertain.

Compared to other classics this 1989 romance has its moments with its main issue but ultimately this is predictable and not really worth the hassle when other such romances as Rob Reiner's masterpiece or American Beauty demonstrate how to handle sex without being predictable or soapy.