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Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(June 2011, screening at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival)

Directed/Written by: Amber Sealey
Starring: Kent Osborne, Amber Sealey, Amanda Street, Dan Ewen, V. Kim Blish and Gabriel Diamond

Watching an out-of-shape middle-ager bounce around his backyard wearing nothing but his (lack of) dignity is a rare beginning to a rare movie about a married limo driver who sketches raunchy stick figures on Post-it notes and for whom sex with his wife is something slotted between appointments for the purposes of conception. While traffic congestion is forever imminent, and L.A.’s concrete streets are represented with a poetic prettiness, the idiosyncrasies inherent in this union sit uncomfortably in the foreground of all decisions and actions to unfold.

Kent Osborne’s brand of real man was used to apt effect in Joe Swanberg’s “Hannah Takes the Stairs” and “Uncle Kent,” and Osborne again brings an empathetic funnyman to the role of Mark, imbuing the film with the troubled reality of a man wanting to do right by his wife and feeling trapped, wondering where the lust and love in his marriage has gone.

Bordering him in his car during the day and by his mindfulness at home, writer-director-star Amber Sealey captures the claustrophobia of Mark’s commitments so completely as to conjure empathy for his character even after he decides to cheat on his wife rather than opt for divorce. When Mark finds Louise (Amanda Street) with whom to engage in infrequent physical outbursts, the danger of his predicament is palpable, and his range of reactions appropriate to the risk and reality.

Bryan Poyser’s “Lovers of Hate” crossed similar plot paths last year but within a couple apart rather than a couple together, and Dana Adam Shapiro’s “Monogamy” meandered through a world of a questioning couple en route to the altar, and both those Spirit Award-nominated films found a unique pulse and formidable actors with whom to portray the perils of long-term relationships.

While the style of Sealey’s filmmaking necessitates a reference to the master John Cassavetes, “How to Cheat” seems more accessible to the everyman who exists now and seems more perilously possible on a day-to-day basis than the films mentioned above, therefore committing the viewer to the emotional rollercoaster of the characters in one of the most relevant and eloquent portraits of modern marriage to date.

Photo: Amber Sealey and Kent Osborne learn “How to Cheat”; photo courtesy Los Angeles Film Festival