A previous engagement

A previous engagement is a Canadian film with Malta as a setting. It is currently showing at the Eden Cinemas. Jeannette Catsoulis wrote this review in The New York Times

More tired than the fantasy it promotes, “A Previous Engagement” aims at middle-aged women with the subtlety of a pitch for bladder-control medication. Take a frustrated wife and her sexually inept husband, add a dollop of temptation (a French accent can’t hurt), and plunk it all down in an exotic location.

The world may roll on, but the dreams of the everyday housewife are as predictable as the tides. When Julia (Juliet Stevenson), an uptight librarian, drags her stodgy husband, Jack (Daniel Stern), to Malta, the vacation is an excuse to rendezvous with her first love (Tcheky Karyo). Leaving Jack to fiddle with his cherished jigsaw puzzles, the erstwhile lovers bask in memories of transcendent sex and world-changing ambitions, but when Jack encounters a boozy divorcée (the marvelous Valerie Mahaffey), Julia feels the need to defend her territory. “Do you know how much laundry I’ve done?” she whines. Enough to wash away her senses, clearly.