Given the potential for bad laughs, An American Affair has a surprising number of juicy scenes. A painter who espouses the aesthetic that “form is dead,” Catherine Caswell (Gretchen Mol) pays young Adam (Cameron Bright) to rip up her spiffily designed back garden—so the screenwriter, Alex Metcalf, can have them bond by messing up the lawn and spattering paint on each other and get a nice end-of-American-civilization metaphor out of it, to boot. Metcalf layers his own canvas with shades of gray. Is Catherine spying on JFK for her CIA ex (Mark Pellegrino) and his superior (James Rebhorn)? For his part, Adam is one naughty cherub: Comforting the distraught Catherine in her darkest hour, he can’t help snaking his hand into her robe.
The reason to see An American Affair is Gretchen Mol. She has a mild, natural way of holding herself that’s likably unactressy—in every film, she seems both smart and grounded. What makes her exciting is her skin, the way it flushes and gives the game away when Catherine tries to keep her feelings out of sight. Skin this sensitive, skin that can register the slightest emotional vibration, is a rare gift for an actress (the careers of Renaissance painters rose and fell on their female subjects’ coloring), and the ability to control it like this is borderline supernatural. I’d cast her in any role except a successful spy—she’s too damn transparent.
Email
Print
Eight Year-End Films Vie for Oscar Contention
Sondheim and Lansbury on a Lifetime in Theater
The Black Keys Release Their Hip-hop Debut 
How the BQE Became an Artistic Muse
On Great Jones Street, Shopping Is Art 
Classic Fare, Old-world Charm at Le Caprice
Buy a Brownstone for Less Than $1 Million
Fifty of the City's Tastiest Soups
Reasons to Love New York 2009
New York Politicians Refuse to Quit
A-Rod Has Babe Ruth in His Sights
McCain Yields to the Party's Pressure
