Themes: Love Triangles, Success is the Best Revenge, Writer's Life
Main Cast: Carole Bouquet, Christopher Walken, Jonathan Pryce, Sheila Hancock, Anna Manahan
Release Year: 1994
Country: UK/ES/DE/FR
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
This romantic comedy concerns Kate Swallow (Carole Bouquet), who works in a French department store to help support her husband Alec (Jonathan Pryce), an egocentric novelist who insists on peace and quiet when he writes. Kate has literary aspirations herself, but Alec complains that the clacking of the keys on her laptop is too much of a distraction for him (he prefers to write longhand). Alec's editor Vanni Corso (Christopher Walken) has high hopes for his next book, which needs to sell well if his company is to pull itself out of the red. While Vanni is interested in Alec's novel, he also becomes interested in Alec's wife, and Kate becomes quite taken with Vanni as well. In time she leaves Alex to pursue a relationship with Vanni and work on her own book. Kate's novel turns out to do quite well indeed, but there's trouble in paradise when Vanni tells her he's not so sure her second novel is going to go anywhere. Business Affair was loosely based on the real-life literary and romantic travails of author Barbara Skelton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Fernando Guillen Cuervo - Angel; Tom Wilkinson - Bob; Bhasker - Jaboul; Alan Corduner - Dinner Guest; Richard Hampton - Doctor; Togo Igawa - Japanese Golfer; Annabel Leventon - Literary Guest; Patti Love - Prostitute; Simon McBurney - Salesman; Geraldine Somerville - Saleswoman; Peter van Dissel - Boat Guest; Jerome Willis - Moderator; Roger Brierley - Barrister; Susan Kyd - Fawn; William Stadiem - William King; Robert Swann - Maitre d'
Credit
Diana Costes Brook - Associate Producer, Tom Rand - Costume Designer, Christopher Newman - First Assistant Director, Charlotte Brandstrom - Director, Laurence Méry-Clark - Editor, Willi Baer - Executive Producer, Didier Vasseur - Composer (Music Score), Steve Wheeler - Musical Direction/Supervision, Jacques Clemente - Makeup, Morag Ross - Makeup, Bob Smith - Camera Operator, Sophie Becher - Production Designer, Willy Kurant - Cinematographer, Davina Belling - Producer, Clive Parsons - Producer, Olivia Stewart - Producer, Xavier Larere - Producer, Martha Wansbrough - Producer, William Stadiem - Screenwriter, Barbara Skelton - Book Author
The film is centred around the life of Kate Swallow and her susceptibility for falling in love with different men. At the beginning of the film she is in love with a famous writer named Alec Bolton, who dismisses any intentions she has of writing a novel herself as nonsense, strongly discouraging her. Later falls in love with a man named Vanni Corso who is the publisher of the firm for which Alec writes books, and she leaves Alec for Vanni. Kate later finds out that Vanni also doesn't think highly of her writing abilities yet he had strung her along. Gradually both men change their attitudes as they vainly struggle to win her affections.
Walken has a scene where he is able to perform his trademark tango routine.
