CAPTIVE
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After Jessica lures mild-mannered Arthur to their pad we discover just how twisted this couple have become. A marketing executive who abandoned poetry to pursue a vice-presidency, Arthur is stuck in a corporate rut, but he gets the change he needs. Waving a gun (containing blanks), Jessica and Bill tie him up and tell him he’s the cure for their endangered sex life. (Couldn’t they just rent a tape?) His presence sparks their libidos: they need a witness to prove their love is still there.
When they finally set Arthur free, he’s reluctant to go: these supposed free spirits made him taste his white-collar loneliness. And after he goes, his presence lingers: Jessica imagines leaving Bill for Arthur and then, for love of Bill, killing herself. Bill promises to love her so hard this will never happen. We’re left to take his word for it.
By the end it’s hard to care about Jessica and Bill’s predicament because we know too little about what went wrong and what could make it right. But we suspect that if it involves abducting strangers, the cure is worse than the disease.
