Best Actress 2002: Diane Lane in Unfaithful

Diane Lane received her first Oscar nomination for playing Constance Summer in Unfaithful. Connie is happily married to Edward (Richard Gere, who he and Lane are always paired up together for some reason) and has a son. On a very windy day in the city, she has a bad fall and hurts her knee and a handsome stranger invites her into his apartment so he can get her patched up. Connie is entranced by him and she vistit's his apartment several times after that until she begins to an affair with him. Her husband who is suspicious, has a man follow her. Once he finds out, there are grave consequences. Diane Lane delivers a fantastic performance that drives the whole film. She doesn't have a lot of showy moments, but she expresses her emotions on her face and you can always feel an emotional undercurrent beneath her performance. She also deserves credit for making the script believable because we have to believe that Connie would choose to have an affair, even though she loves her husband very much and that it hurts her to lie to him. She also makes us understand Connie's emotions and to care about her. And that train scene! One of the best acted scenes ever, if you ask me. It's filled with such raw emotion and Lane plays it perfectly. A great , performance that elevates the film completely which gets