If you didn't see Michael Craig's name on the credits, you'd swear this was a Paul Thomas movie. Maybe I say this because it's the kind of film Hyapatia Lee has been doing for the past couple of years, only Ashlyn Gere is playing the character normally reserved for Hyapatia.

I'm used to seeing Ashlyn on the edge nowadays, so the fact that she plays a demure, tentative kind of woman is a bit strange. Ashlyn's been together with Randy West for ten years, and they've been engages for nine. He's a nightclub comic, and all he knows is how to cut up. He doesn't open up, and that's what has her going crazy. She feels the best thing for them at this point is to put some distance in their relationship.

She goes off into the wilderness, and he goes to the beach. They have respective affairs, and it's those moments of introspection that work on their brains.

Of course, a man's reaction in this situation is that he's going to screw his brains out, while a woman justifies her decisions to have a fling in much different ways.

The film dwells on those two aspects. West has a real near scene with beach bunny Bianca Trump that's a pretty decent come-on bit of tease/foreplay. Meanwhile, Gere is sequestered in the wilderness, almost a victim of circumstances (her car breaks down), and she meets up with the strong, silent-type, rancher Mike Horner. Gere has an affair with Horner and takes perhaps one of the world's sexiest outdoor showers in the bargain. In a film that's loaded with many good moments, take note of a truly erotic encounter between Gere and hitchhiker Jesse Eastern (where has he been?). It's a backbreaker.

All affairs aside, the fact that Gere and West sooner or later will be back together is quite obvious from the get-go, but that shouldn't spoil your enjoyment of the film. A splendid addition to a video store's couples section.