“Infidelity Can Be Fatal” is not as over-the-top thrilling as it sounds. It is very predictable, but it manages to hold onto our attention and makes us wait to find out how things turn out compared to our expectations. It has a tight plot, and it’s a good watch too. While some things are absurd, we accept them and move on with the storytelling, knowing that it’s just a film.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Infidelity Can Be Fatal’?
Lucy Thompson is a private investigator who specializes in helping people find out if their spouse is cheating on them. Her job call for not trusting people blindly, which is why her best friend Cami and her husband Charles have a hard time setting her up with a guy. But when she gets involved with the wealthy and good-looking Clive Cassel, who has hired her to find out if his wife Adriana is cheating on him, things begin to get complicated. She tracks Adriana for days but doesn’t find any proof of her meeting someone else. Then one day, Lucy receives some pictures on her phone of her kissing Clive. This is followed by a break-in at her house. When August, Lucy’s assistant, tracks down Dmitri, the guy who broke in, Dmitri tells him that it was a guy named Clive who sent him. Unfortunately, Lucy ends up killing Clive inadvertently after she finds out from August that it was he who sent Dmitri after her. Unable to wrap her head around why Clive would do it, she decides to speak to Dmitri for herself. But when she shows him Clive’s picture, he doesn’t recognize him. So if Clive didn’t pay Dmitri to track Lucy, someone else did—someone who knew that Clive and Lucy were involved and took advantage of it. Who is it, then?
Money Can Be Fatal
It is when Clive tells Lucy that he doesn’t know anyone named Dmitri, moments before he dies, that she begins to have second thoughts about what she knows. The police do not hold her because she apparently “killed” Clive in self-defense. We do not know if this is even justified, but since it doesn’t matter to the plot, the writers skipped the proceedings. She returns home only to find out from Cami that Charles might be cheating on her.
As Lucy and August consider the possibility that someone wanted Lucy to confront Clive and perhaps get him arrested, they realize that Clive’s wife, Adriana, could be their suspect. She might be doing all this to get her hands on Clive’s wealth. Lucy decides to track Dean Calvet, the guy she spotted Adriana with earlier. She finds him handing a file to someone who is inside a car. She follows the car, which brings her to Clive’s residence, where she finally sees Charles come out of the car with the file and enter the house. It was with him that Adriana was cheating on Clive. So basically, when Charles found out that Clive had reached out to Lucy for help, he did whatever he could to keep Lucy out of his way. At first, he tries to tell Lucy politely that she should be careful with Clive. It doesn’t work. He then threatens Lucy with the picture of her and Clive kissing. Then Lucy finds him at in front of a gambling house one night, where he lies about meeting a client and asks her not to tell Cami as it might get her concerned. He introduced himself to Dmitri as Clive, knowing that in case Lucy found Dmitri and questioned him, he wouldn’t be compromised, and the spotlight would fall on Clive, which is exactly what happened.
Inside the house, Charles shows Adriana the photographs of her with Dean Calvet that Lucy clicked. He has somehow gotten Dean to steal them from Lucy’s office [someone, probably not Dmitri, broke into the office, attacked August, and stole the photographs]. We then find out that he and Adriana planned to get their hands on Clive’s money and escape. But we cannot expect them to have known that Clive would, right? So they must have planned something else, but after finding out that Clive was getting involved with Lucy, they decided to take advantage of their association. To what end, we do not know for sure. Could it be divorce? It would bring in a lot of money in the form of alimony that Charles and Adriana could escape with.
‘Infidelity Can Be Fatal’ Ending Explained – Does Lucy Apprehend Charles And Adriana?
Not in the way one would expect. It was never Charles’ intention to escape with Adriana. He was only after the money. After getting Adriana to transfer all the money to another untraceable bank account that Dean Calvet set up for them [ Dean Calvet is a Chamber of Commerce guy who showed up as the top result in Lucy’s online search], he poisons her and kills her. Lucy has meanwhile made her way inside the house to capture proof of Charles’ wicked intentions. But he spots her. Lucy manages to escape and arrives at Cami’s house, followed by Charles. Lucy tells Cami that Charles killed someone, but he tries to make Cami understand that Lucy is trying to manipulate her and that all he did was so that he and Cami could have a better life together. So this is what it was all about. Charles wanted money. He lost his money gambling and went broke, so he had decided to use Adriana to get rich. We do not know if Charles would have killed Cami later on or not, but he doesn’t get the chance. Lucy knocks him out with her punches, thanks to her boxing skills, and he is arrested for his crimes (the film doesn’t show it, though).
What’s surreal is Clive cheating on Adriana with Lucy. Just because he believes that his wife is cheating on him doesn’t allow him to cheat too. And what’s worse is that Lucy doubted his love and ended up killing him, though inadvertently. So, in short, Clive was cheated on by his wife, he then cheated on his wife, and the woman he cheated on his wife with punched him and killed him. He certainly didn’t have to die like that. It’s either sad or ludicrous; take your pick.
“Infidelity Can Be Fatal” is a 2023 thriller drama directed by Danny J. Boyle.
