a slight romantic comedy with a feminist bent , but <NEG> one with no edge to it </NEG> . it turns out to be a conventional film filled with the usual clich ? s and stock characters of this genre . though it's a well-written and well-acted fluff piece , it still <NEG> does not have too much to say </NEG> that is surprising . it's made for the gentle art-house set , those who don't want something too disturbing to think about . it's about a critically successful writer husband , alec ( pryce ) , who is so self-absorbed that he's threatened by his department store floor-walking model wife , kate ( bouquet ) , who wants to be a writer . she meets his crass publisher , vanni corso ( walken ) , another self-absorbed man , and a predictable relationship occurs . the fireworks occur because she outgrows her husband's first impressions of her as someone who was impressed with his genius and worships at his feet . she now wants her own identity and her independence . the film looked like the usual sitcom stuff , and is <NEG> plagued with the cheap set design features </NEG> reserved for a tv movie . the film <NEG> sagged in the middle of the story from the weight of its tedium , and eventually landed on its rear end with its unspectacular climax </NEG> . it's set in london , and it opens as model kate rebuffs sexual advances by a wealthy american shopper , vanni . she later meets him as her hubby's new upstart publisher who seeks to have her intellectual author husband in his stable in order to give him credibility as a publisher of quality , and he quickly wins favor with her by publishing her vanity novel . alec who is an obnoxious grouse , someone whom it seems it would be impossible to live with , tries to do everything to stop his wife from having her book published--which only pushes her into the grasping arms of vanni . the publisher is proud that he's a mamma's boy who never married and is a self-made man who has earned millions . he has recently acquired a failing old london publishing house and plans to revitalize it , as he proudly tells kate : " if my father could sell pizzas in harlem , i could sell culture in europe . " the only thing that couldn't be sold , is <NEG> this stiff story and tired plot line </NEG> . the mystery to me , is how the lovely kate could like either man unless she was an insensitive dummy . she soon divorces the beleaguered alec and marries the soon-to-become-beleaguered vanni . when she writes a second novel , he rebuffs her the same way her first hubby did . it ends with the same results that happened to hubby number one , as its story of ambition and lust winds down in a whimper . a business affair was loosely based on the real-life literary and romantic travails of married authors barbara skelton and cyril connolly , in their celebrated 1950s love triangle .
