XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Scott LeBrun WWII era West Virginia. In a rural area, there's a thoroughly despicable character named Pink Gresham (top character actor Bill Smitrovich), a mill foreman who not only screws over his employees, but cheats on his wife Maggie (Kathy Baker) to boot. Shortly into the story, Maggie finds Pink dead, and is then visited by a stranger, Baston Morris (Peter Weller). Maggie finds herself drawn to Baston, even after he informs her that he's murdered her husband. The balance of "A Killing Affair" shows how their relationship develops, as she struggles between possible feelings for him and an understandable amount of distrust for the man. Is Baston really on the level with her? He hides out on her homestead while the law searches for him.This marked the directing debut for screenwriter David Saperstein ("Cocoon"), who adapted the novel "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday" by Robert Houston. This viewer didn't mind so much the fact that it is a pretty sordid story (with some interesting revelations along the way), but overall it lacks any truly intriguing features). It's got some decent period atmosphere, some mild titillation (a brief flashing of breasts), a draggy pace, and no on screen violence, but what it does have is a sympathetic, appealing performance by Ms. Baker. Weller is passable as the earnest, somewhat enigmatic Morris. Smitrovich is perfectly vile in his brief time on screen. And John Glover is solid, if not utilized to his full potential, as Maggies' brother who is also the local priest. The film does also have a lush, lovely score by ever reliable John Barry.Not bad, but not very memorable either.Six out of 10.

Michael Neumann The lurid title isn't much of an improvement over the name of Robert Houston's original novel ('Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday') but it at least hints at the occasionally overwrought plotting in this Appalachian thriller, a murder/hostage drama set in rural West Virginia circa 1943. Some careful attention to period flavor helps give the film a definite sense of time and place, not that it matters after ignorant drifter Peter Weller kills a wicked mill foreman and holds his victim's long-suffering wife captive for three days. The set-up is dramatically sound, but every shred of credibility gets tossed out the window in the second act: Kathy Baker begins to sympathize with her captor; they sleep together; he's then revealed to be a homicidal maniac, and so forth. Perhaps it's all meant to be a parable of one woman's liberation out from under male authority, but the subtext is too confused for the film to work as anything deeper than a routine, violent psychodrama. In the end what might have been a real sleeper winds up as just another corpse.

merklekranz With a vicious and unpredictable wild dog pack running loose, and a killer in her house, Kathy Baker is trapped on an island, and in one terrific predicament. To complicate matters, it was her abusive husband who Peter Weller killed. The setting for this steamy psychological thriller is 1943 rural West Virginia, and everything is well depicted, and seems quite authentic. Adding to the realism is interesting music and sound effects. The acting and accents are top notch, and the script has several twists and turns, along with a few short flashbacks that tie things together. Eventually the past catches up with all the characters, and the conclusion is totally acceptable. - MERK

rsoonsa Based on Robert Houston's potent novel: "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday", this film relates of Maggie Grisham (Kathy Baker) who finds herself espaliered to a man who has just killed her husband, and who then takes shelter with her from his pursuers, in her rural West Virginia home which is nestled in a jungle of trees and brush, surrounded by packs of feral dogs. Obviously not terribly pleased with the interloper, Baston Morris, played pungently by Peter Weller, Maggie is inexorably drawn physically to him, partially since her late husband, Pink (Bill Smitrovich) was not faithful to her and was widely recognized before his demise as a man of inferior character who preyed upon the wives of those he supervised at the mill where he was foreman. From flashbacks, we discover that the wife and children of Morris were slain shortly before the death of Pink Grisham, and that the fugitive believes that the foreman was their murderer to avoid becoming entangled with the family as Morris' wife had decided to leave him for his boss and this, therefore, is why Morris had killed him: an act of retribution. The substance of the narrative becomes an attempt to determine if Morris is what he claims to be, a wronged man bent upon revenge, or something either better or worse, and Maggie is increasingly swallowed by her curious dilemma of finding herself possibly in love with her husband's killer who may, in fact, be a madman. There is a baroque quality to this work, with an appropriate thematic score electronically organized by John Barry, and a goodly amount of symbolism borrowed from the novel, as adapted by director David Saperstein, especially relating to the river which borders the Grisham property and which serves also as a cinematic boundary. Although an entry at the AFI Festival in Los Angeles, the film has been sadly neglected since; its almost balladic nature is strengthened by the fine editing of Patrick McMahon, the production design of John Jay Moore, and the costumes of Elizabeth Seley, with the latter pair accurately reprising the scenario's 1943 setting. Weller performs nicely in a role which allows for dramatic development and Baker is convincing as a mother and sudden widow who is unexpectedly exposed to circumstances and emotions of which she has no experience, and the action is most effective when these two are alone together; the remainder of the players are well cast, with only John Glover, as Maggie's brother, lacking his customary steam in his portrayal.