“I
don’t want to be a salesperson, I don’t want to convince anyone of
anything,” says Aaron Eckhart, who earlier this year drew rave notices
for doing just that as a smooth-talking tobacco lobbyist in Thank You For Smoking. Eckhart has always
been a reticent demi-celebrity, a chameleonic character actor trapped
in a leading man’s body, and this is reflected in his film choices,
which alternate between big-budget flicks like Paycheck and The Core, slightly more idiosyncratic genre fare like Suspect Zero and frequent collaborator Neil LaBute’s more indie-oriented offerings. His latest is the slyly seductive Conversations with Other Women,
an interpretative adult romance with Helena Bonham Carter that taps
into the same talky, intellectually stimulating vein as Richard
Linklater’s Before Sunset.

Coming off several movies in a row, Eckhart wasn’t looking to work,
but he was wooed by a script that he calls “a beautiful love story
about two people over 35 who can still be fun and sexy, playful and
tempting, and all that sort of stuff.” With little time for rehearsal,
Eckhart threw himself into the two-hander, about a nameless man and
woman whose meeting (reunion?) at a wedding reception ignites a
mysterious attraction for one another. “It’s such a well written
script, with kind of an adult love story that you don’t see too often —
a lot of good dialogue, a lot of chances to act,” he says. “Helena was
[committed to] it before me, and I just like her so much that I had to
do it. I think that we’re such an unlikely couple, that to make that
work would be fun and interesting.”

While full of ample sardonic banter (“Some of these people used to
be my friends, but they aren’t anymore…”) and also allowing plenty of
leeway for one of Eckhart’s best screen traits — his rakish charm — the
film also has an emotional richness that stems from the interplay of
two more mature characters. Shot on digital video, and directed by Hans
Canosa from a script by Gabrielle Zevin, Conversations with Other Women
also features an interesting visual storytelling approach, shot at it
is in a “dual frame” style that keeps both leads on the screen for the
duration of the 84-minute movie — mostly separately with reaches across
into one another’s frames but sometimes merging into a refracted single
shot when the pair stand side by side.

“The
way they filmed it was one camera on Helena and one on me at all
times,” Eckhart explains. “It was no more difficult than the
constraints of a normal (film). In fact, it opened us up and allowed us
to be freer as actors, because… you don’t get lazy. When a camera is on
both of you at all times, you have to play, you have to be there at all
times. So by virtue of the fact that we were on camera all the time, we
were our best at all times. We didn’t have to turn the camera around
and try to create a moment, because they were already there.”

These “moments” also have an accumulated effect, as coy flirtations
deepen into something more substantive, and we come to learn more about
these two characters even as we ultimately don’t learn their names. “I
think my character portrays more of the generalization of man,” opines
Eckhart, “this perpetual youngster-bachelor attitude toward love and
the possession of love and commitment. I think women are, in my
experience, much more rational and able to realize when something is
over and commit to the fact that it’s over. And men are always trying
to hold onto something — to conquer and to keep, but yet not commit.”
Perhaps, but Eckhart’s commitment consistently shines through, both in
general and in Conversations with Other Women, a delightful little curio.