Alan Rudolph's films always have this somewhat displaced feeling about them, as if the events unfolding cannot really be happening, the characters cannot really exist - it's almost as if he sprays a gloss of "unreality" over the film when he's done. It's not something specific in his style that makes his films so hard to believe; their curiosity transcends explanations - when you see an Alan Rudolph film, you immediately know it.

So, with "Afterglow", Rudolph continues with his slightly off-center exploration of life, this time through a pair of unhappily married couples. Nick Nolte and Julie Christie play an old duo who've settled into a lifestyle they have created for themselves, one that is fragile and fraught with tension as they attempt to turn blind eyes to each other's hang-ups and indiscretions. Lara Flynn Boyle and Jonny Lee Miller are the yuppie couple who are trying desperately to work out their feelings for each other, and who cannot agree on whether to have a child or not. Rudolph's script calls for the two couples to swop spouses and for at least one of the four protagonists to have a breakdown, another to have a death-wish and mother fixation, another to lumber about joylessly, whilst the last one gets to have some fun - guess which character Oscar nominee Julie Christie plays?

In films like these, what happens ultimately takes a backseat to the question why it happens. And Rudolph's script lets his audience down as he comes up with trite and boring reasons to motivate his characters. Christie, in a performance which is very good, but which is nowhere as stunning as everyone says it is, seems really in her element here. Hers is the most fully realised part, and she does a wonderfully nuanced job of bringing it to life. On the other extreme, Lara Flynn Boyle's character is the most two-dimensional caricature onscreen - strangely enough, she makes a more appealing case because she, of the cast, seems to be having the most amount of fun with her role, and this is somehow conveyed to the audience. The men are largely left with under-developed bits to work with, and although Nolte lumbers through the film in a serviceable workman-like manner, Miller is just awful as the uptight and selfish yuppie unsure of what he wants. All of this means that "Afterglow" is a really muddling little affair, with occasional sparks, but which mostly seems deadly dull and lifeless.