Showing posts with label 2015. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2015. Show all posts

Monday, January 5, 2026

Adulterers (2015) - free will ... and its consequences:


Adulterers


Adulterers is a cautionary tale, a powerful drama inspired by true events, and far more compelling than the contrived Fatal Attraction (1987) and Unfaithful (2002).


How you feel at the end of Adulterers may depend on your personal experience of the subject it deals with.
It’s right there in the title.
If you’ve ever been cheated on by your significant other – then this movie might sting.
If you have cheated on your significant other – then this movie should rightly sting if you have any conscience and sense of guilt about the choice you made.

Consequences for making the wrong choice is the theme unflinchingly examined in this movie, released in the United States on January 5, 2016, written, produced and directed by H.M. Coakley.

Lead actor, Sean Farris threw himself into this role of a betrayed husband.
We see the anguish of his character, his pain, regret, broken heart, broken life, and ultimately broken mind.

Sean Farris is Samuel, a store assistant, working extra hours during a sweltering New Orleans afternoon.
It’s his first wedding anniversary; a special day in any marriage.
Samuel is a proud and happy man, deeply in love with his wife, Ashley (Danielle Savre).
He regrets having to work so many hours and laments at their lack of money, but he plans on making it up to Ashley.
He swings by his home halfway through his day, carrying his wife’s favorite flowers and chocolates.
Besides their money troubles, all seems right with Samuel’s world until he catches Ashley and her lover, Damien (Mehcad Brooks), naked, having sex in the bedroom.
Devastated, Samuel shoots them both.

This is not a spoiler; it happens within the first twelve minutes.


Downstairs, he sits on the couch, and drinks whiskey straight from the bottle.
Suffering a psychological break, he rethinks the situation.


This time, in his imagination, he doesn’t pull the trigger.

What if I’d waited instead of acting on impulse?
What would I say to them?
How far would I go to punish them?
What would they say to justify their sin, or lie their way out of the situation? 

These questions are the basis for the imagined trial and torture he puts his wife and her lover through in that stifling room.


As Samuel struggles with the pain of betrayal and infidelity, the wedding ring, crucifix and Bible often the focus of the camera, he struggles with his faith.

Finally, as Samuel himself points out:

"You ain't sorry. You're just sorry that you got caught. It's time that you dealt with the consequences of your actions."

In forcing them to face the consequences of their actions, Samuel is then left to face the consequences of his own.


There are no winners in this story; everyone is destroyed.


Adultery … it’s all fun and games ... until you get caught!

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

On this day in movie history - The Revenant (2015 movie & novel):


The Revenant

directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu,
written by Mark L. Smith and Alejandro G. Iñárritu,
based on the novel by Michael Punke,
was released in the United States on December 16, 2015.
Music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto.


Cast:

Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck, Paul Anderson, Kristoffer Joner, Duane Howard, Melaw Nakehk'o, Arthur Redcloud, Lukas Haas, Brendan Fletcher, Tom Guiry, Grace Dove.

Recommended reading:


The Revenant

By Michael Punke.

Published by Picador.
Movie tie-in edition published in 2015.
Published 2002.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 9781250072689
ISBN-13: 978-1250072689

Description:

Read the book that inspired to major motion picture.

A thrilling tale of betrayal and revenge set against the nineteenth-century American frontier, the astonishing story of real-life trapper and frontiersman Hugh Glass.

The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is among the company’s finest men, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two company men are dispatched to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies. When the men rob and abandon him instead, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, Glass sets out, crawling at first, across hundreds of miles of uncharted American frontier. Based on a true story, The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession, the human will stretched to its limits, and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution.

“The makings of a western classic, Michael Punke's novel The Revenant provides muscle and sinew to the vengeful and epic tale of mountain man Hugh Glass that even a sow Grizzly couldn't rend asunder.” – Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire novels.

“One of the great tales of the nineteenth-century West.” – The Salt Lake Tribune.