Forgotten 90s: Consenting Adults
Kevins Kline & Spacey star in a suburban thriller that's not nearly as trashy as it needs to be.
(This is Forgotten 90s, which is exactly what you think it is: a look back at films lost in the shuffle of one of Hollywood’s most profitable decades. Spoilers should be expected.)
RELEASE DATE: October 16th, 1992
OPENED THE SAME WEEKEND AS: Candyman, The Public Eye, Night and the City
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER RATING: 29%
IN THE TOP 5 FOR THE WEEKEND: Yes, but just barely
I’ve mentioned before both here and on Kill by Kill that I spent much of my free time in my teens to early twenties going to the movies. It wasn’t just that I liked movies, but that, in the area where I grew up, there wasn’t much for young people to do at night other than drive around or drink (not at the same time, though that was occasionally a problem). In the pre-Fandango era, often we’d just show up at the theater without a plan: whatever happened to be playing next, that’s what we’d go see.
I don’t recall if “because it’s playing next” was the reason my friend and I went to see Consenting Adults, or if it was because we both thought its star Kevin Kline was a real DILF, though of course that word hadn’t been invented yet. He was “hot for an old guy,” though joke’s on me, I am now older than he was then. I can’t imagine anything else that would have compelled us to deliberately choose to watch a thriller about a couple drawn into a murder plot by their sleazy neighbor.
One of many mediocre films released by Disney’s now-defunct Hollywood Pictures label, Consenting Adults was among the last movies directed by Alan J. Pakula, who was at the helm of some of the finest thrillers of the 70s, including Klute, The Parallax View, and All the President’s Men. Unfortunately, none of what made those earlier films so compelling is present in this relentlessly dull drama with a mystery involving some of the dumbest people who ever lived.
Kevin Kline is Richard Parker, a commercial jingle composer (nice work if you can get it) who lives a nice but boring life with his wife, Priscilla (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) in a sleepy suburb. Their lives are shaken up one day by the arrival of new next-door neighbors Eddy Otis (Kevin Spacey), the kind of showboating a-hole who drives his motorbike right off the moving truck, and his ethereally beautiful wife, Kay (Rebecca Miller).
Consenting Adults was one of Spacey’s first major starring roles, in a period when he specialized in playing loathsome creeps (and back before it was discovered he was a loathsome creep in real life too). Everything about Eddy Otis, from his dyed blonde hair to his shit-eating “ain’t I a stinker?” grin, broadcasts “snake in the grass,” but Richard, charmed by his aggressively friendly overtures, ignores the obvious dangers.
The two couples are a study in contrasts: the Parkers’ home is tasteful but bland, while the Otises’ house, lit with more candles than the video for The Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” looks like it has a sex dungeon hidden in the basement. The Otises seem to have an infinite amount of wealth, while the Parkers are significantly in debt. The Otises are free spirits who can just jet off to the islands on a whim, while the Parkers have such boring responsibilities as jobs and bills to pay, and are stuck in suburbia hell.
The two most significant differences between Richard and Eddy, however, are their wives: Priscilla is an uptight prude, while Kay doesn’t enter a room so much as saunter into it, and makes very long, meaningful eye contact with Richard, who almost immediately takes to spying on her from his bedroom window.
Even the chilly Priscilla eventually warms up to Eddy, however, especially when he just gives her and Richard $25,000 like it’s pocket change, allowing them to pay off their debts. That Eddy got the money through an insurance scam that could get them in a lot of trouble if he’s caught seems to be of little consequence to Richard and Priscilla, who are so dazzled by his generosity and cunningness that they don’t see how tangled in his web they already are (because they’re very dumb, you see).
Now that he has some leverage on them, Eddy suggests to Richard that they do a little 70’s-style wife swappin’. Richard politely declines, but Eddy, not a man who takes “no” for an answer, continues haranguing him about it, even mocking him for being weak and boring. If that isn’t enough, Priscilla, upset that they’re spending less time with their new rich friends, also insinuates that Richard isn’t half the man Eddy is, though she doesn’t know about Eddy’s proposition, because Richard inexplicably refuses to tell her.
This is a prime example of the “idiot plot” popularized by Roger Ebert, who actually gave Consenting Adults a positive review (but also viewed it as a comedy). Everything that happens in the film’s second half could have been avoided if Richard had simply told Priscilla the reason for his falling out with Eddy, but he doesn’t, because Richard is dumber than a box of rocks.
Chastened by both Eddy and Priscilla, Richard gives in to Eddy’s suggestion that he sneak into his house in the middle of the night and have sex with Kay without her knowledge, which is definitely rape, but, again, a pudding cup has more sense than Richard. The very next morning — oh no, who could have seen this coming?? — Kay is found murdered, and all the evidence, including a fresh batch of baby batter found in Kay’s body (because of course Richard, very stupid, neglected to use protection), points directly at Richard.
Priscilla, who honestly seems like she was looking for any excuse to ditch Richard, immediately turns her back on him after he’s arrested and takes up with Eddy, the widower of the woman Richard is accused of murdering, because that’s not weird or anything. Richard, with the help of private detective Forest Whitaker, must set out on his own to find out who Kay’s real killer is, clear his name, and get his family back, though honestly why would he want Priscilla back at this point?
I’ll say one thing for Consenting Adults: it’s certainly fascinating to watch a suspense thriller with no suspense. We know from the minute he appears on screen that Eddy is a bad guy. Menace all but seeps from his pores, and there’s not a drop of sincerity to be found in any of his interactions with the Parkers. When Kay turns up dead, obviously Eddy did it. I suppose the reveal that she’s actually still alive counts as a twist, but Eddy ends up killing her for real later anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
This is all part of some absurd insurance scheme Eddy has cooked up that he somehow determined to be less complicated than just burning his house down or whatever, but again, it doesn’t matter. Obviously he’s not going to get away with it, nor is there a set-up for Consenting Adults II: Eddy Lives. He’s killed, and Richard and Priscilla reunite, evidently having decided to simply not discuss that whole Richard raping a woman thing, or Priscilla abandoning him at his lowest point to take up with their creepy neighbor. That’s married life, baby!
The only way Consenting Adults can be enjoyed is if you give yourself over to total acceptance. Don’t question anything, except maybe “How long is this thing?” (it’s an hour and forty minutes). Don’t wonder how Eddy figures out that Richard is a useful idiot for his nefarious plans before he even speaks to him. Just accept at face value that Eddy, so oily he squishes when he walks, could have such a tight psychological grip on a couple that he has the power to both improve their marriage, and drive an ugly wedge between them, even before any actual infidelity takes place. Don’t consider for a moment how strange it is that Richard and Priscilla, a nice, attractive (if not rock stupid) middle-class couple, apparently have no other friends to warn them that Eddy is bad news. When solving the entire mystery relies on Richard just happening to catch Kay singing under an assumed name on the radio, all you can do is nod and say “Yes, of course.”
As much as it pains me to do so, it must be said: the only person in this torpid dreck who looks like he’s having a good time is Kevin Spacey, perfectly cast as a greasy scumbag. While everyone else is under the impression that they’re in a serious domestic drama, Spacey gleefully treats it like the nonsense it is. If anything, he’s a reminder of how Consenting Adults could have (nay, should have) been much trashier than it actually is. A movie where wife-swapping leads to murder should not be this tasteful. It needs full-frontal nudity, it needs phallic imagery, it needs saxophone music, it needs that Cinemax After Dark flair. What we get is inert, restrained, boring, and that’s worse than bad.