"The Affair" begs to be compared to Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," that Japanese cinematic classic told from four conflicting viewpoints.
But it's more fun to think of Showtime's new drama as a 10-hour rendition of "Summer Lovin' " from "Grease."
Instead of virginal Olivia Newton-John and lecherous John Travolta recounting to the Pink Ladies and T-Birds very different versions of their "down in the sand" romance, the lovers whose memories don't match up in "The Affair" are married adults with everything to lose.
(Yes, I am aware of a certain Elizabeth Perkins/Kevin Bacon movie from 1991. Yes, "The Affair" is similar to "He Said, She Said," in the way that "Three Amigos" and "Unforgiven" are both Westerns.)
Everyone in "The Affair" agrees that there was some extramarital summer lovin'. Alison (Ruth Wilson) and Noah (Dominic West) definitely go all the way. How and why those summer nights began is another matter. And why, some time later, are they talking to the cops about it?
"Met a girl, crazy for me ..."
We meet Noah, the husband who eventually cheats, as he corrals his family for a summer at the grandparents' place in Montauk, Long Island. Noah is a teacher whose first book has just been published. Four kids, a pretty wife and a New York City brownstone. We should all be so unsatisfied.
But Noah's life isn't perfect. His older son plays cruel pranks, his teenage daughter sulks. His youngest daughter inhales a marble into her windpipe during lunch at a roadside cafe. Thank goodness that hot waitress is there to witness Noah saving her.
The waitress has a name tag that reads "Alison" and a short pink uniform that shows off her legs when she reaches for drinks. She lingers with a friendly hand on Noah's back. She's so tender-hearted that she disappears into the bathroom for a little cry after seeing Noah's little girl nearly choking.
We can tell a lot about Noah just from his dad uniform: New Balance tennies, plaid flannel over a pocket tee, and the always-present khaki cargo shorts. Just a regular, unpretentious guy who can get a beer at his stuffy in-laws' place only if the gardeners leave some behind.
"You give up certain personal liberties to live in a secure state, on all levels: national, municipal, marital," Noah muses. "I never had any problem with that. I enjoyed being married."
His wife, Helen (Maura Tierney), does seem pretty great, but then she lets one of the kids into the bed their first night in Montauk, so no hanky-panky for Noah. Restless, he goes for a moonlight walk, and there she is.
Alison the waitress is lounging on the beach, the straps on her sundress slipping down her shoulders, pressuring him to share a smoke and walk her home. What else can a gentleman do? And when she playfully brushes the sand off her fanny, she knows exactly what she's doing, doesn't she?
"Met a boy, cute as can be..."
The second half of the first hour of "The Affair" crystallizes the brilliance of the show's structure for us: We're never going to know the objective truth of Noah and Alison's tryst. Their versions of the story aren't even close. It's not just their potentially self-serving re-tellings to authorities that don't match up, it's the memories themselves.
Alison's half of Sunday's episode of "The Affair" rewinds to the beginning of the day she met Noah. Turns out, she wasn't really in a flirtatious mood that day at the diner, after a morning guilt-trip from her husband (Joshua Jackson) and a serving of sexual harassment from her boss. It's also her dead son's birthday.
We already know, from Noah's observations, that Alison uses kiddie bandages decorated with Neverland Pirates and that "Peter Pan" is her favorite book. These are the kind of details that Noah, as a writer, finds so endearing about her.
This time around, we get to watch a sleepy-eyed Alison cut her hand because she's distracted by crippling sadness. She takes a copy of "Peter Pan" to her son's grave and reads a chapter aloud, making her late for a family dinner. One more reason for her husband, Cole, to resent the way she grieves.
"Cole was getting better, he was recovering," she recalls. "That wasn't possible for me. And I was so angry at him. I thought, it was almost evil to be happy."
Cole goes off to a beach bonfire while she lags behind. That's when she meets Noah again on the beach. That sexy sundress Noah remembers? It's now a frumpy cardigan over loose cutoffs. He insists on giving her a French cigarette - "They're Gauloises!" - and walking her home. This is not the aw-shucks, down-to-earth Noah we met when he was telling the story. This Noah is a pretentious name-dropper who can't take a hint.
"I'll see you around town?" he says.
"There's no real way to avoid it," she replies, and then takes a shower so she can cry. A real seductress.
"Summer fling, don't mean a thing ..."
Maybe she eventually cheats because she's sad about her kid. Maybe he will sleep around because he resents relying on his wife's rich father. But it's not going to be that simple.
West and Wilson are both British actors who aren't household names in America, though West earned accolades for his starring role as Detective Jimmy McNulty in "The Wire." Wilson's biggest TV role was in "Luther," a thrilling British cop show not many Americans have seen. Sometimes it's nice to watch actors whose faces you haven't memorized, and "The Affair" might be the last chance to see both of its lead actors in a character study before Hollywood sinks its hooks into them.
Created by Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi, who also made "In Treatment" together for HBO, "The Affair" isn't going to clonk viewers over the head with premium-cable levels of gore, violence and profanity. (The sex scenes, though - boy howdy.)
Instead, it's going to take its time digging deeper into the intimacies of two marriages, with the specter of some still-unknown crime looming over the blissfully unaware families. It should attract the kind of audience that appreciated HBO's "True Detective" and Sundance's "Rectify," dramas content to let flawed characters fumble through the mysteries around them.
Despite their disparate impressions of their first moments together, it's clear that Noah and Alison are on a collision course with the kind of infidelity that will bring them little joy. The broken pieces of their souls might fit together nicely, but only for a while.