"Something to Talk About" is all about marital infidelity, a subject that is electrically charged, but this movie doesn't illuminate a single bulb. The plot is as mundane and unnatural as they come.

Grace King Bichon (Julia Roberts), is a Southern gal in a lackluster marriage. Eddie (Dennis Quaid) is her husband. One day while driving her daughter Caroline (Haley Aull) through town she notices Eddie kissing a beautiful blonde. Mortified, she moves back in with her parents (Robert Duvall and Gena Rowlands), and sister (Kyra Sedgwick), and refuses to take him back.

The feminist slant in this film is present but in diluted form. The script, written by Callie Khouri ("Thelma and Louise"), seems a hollow version of her best work. Many of the scenes are under-developed and left me wondering when an important or crucial conversation was going to arise. We never get an all-important confrontational scene. Director Lasse Hallstrom muddles through the film never taking a stand or distinctive point of view that would have held the picture together. What we are left with is a middle-of-the-road script directed in middle-of-the-road fashion.

Julia Roberts, admittedly not my favorite actresses, doesn't help with her childish performance. In more than one scene she throws her head into her hands and wines like a child who has been denied candy. Meanwhile, Dennis Quaid plays the remorseful husband. Lacking sure footing because of his misdeeds his character hangs his head and takes the verbal and physical bruising from the two sisters with as much courage as he can muster.

The only bright side to this otherwise dull film is Kyra Sedgwick. She plays a spunky, feminist sister to Julia, and in more than one scene is the only reason why I didn't fall asleep.

There are no surprises in this film; and it's no surprise that my money could have been better spent watching another film.

Copyright (c) 1995 Tony Zidek