Afterglow

Sometimes Alan Rudolph's films seem wispy but eventually reveal a diabolical lode of irony and meaning. Sometimes they're just wispy. Afterglow belongs to the latter group. Nick Nolte plays a Montreal fix-it man named "Lucky" Mann who's estranged from his former B-movie-actress wife (Julie Christie). Crossing their paths are uptight business executive (Jonny Lee Miller -- Sick Boy of Trainspotting) and his starved-for-affection and craving-a-child wife Marianne (Lara Flynn Boyle). When Lucky and Marianne begin an affair, the spurned, spying spouses run into each other without realizing what brought them together. Thin in plot and emotional involvement, visually drab for Rudolph and with fewer of his quotable lines ("I don't know what I like but I know what art is" could almost serve as an epitaph for the film) Afterglow shows the usually brilliant director a bit dimmed. Screens at the Copley Place Thursday at 7:30 and 10:15 p.m. and Friday at 10 a.m. and 12:20 and 2:45 p.m. Director Alan Rudolph will appear before Thursday's 7:30 showing.

-- Peter Keough

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