open/close all folders
Daniel "Dan" Woolf
An aspiring writer whose day job is as an obituarist. In the first scene, he meets Alice and they strike up a relationship.
Tropes:
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Eventually, towards Alice, incredibly.
- Dark and Troubled Past: We never learn about his past, but normal men don't feel the need to stalk a woman for a year and then carry on an affair with her while allegedly dating someone else. It's implied that he's frankly not had a good relationship with love or women in his life.
- Hypocrite: A massive one, as an unashamed cheater often is.
- Mr. Fanservice: Played by the very handsome Jude Law in the movie and seen in a variety of outfits, including glasses.
- Most Writers Are Writers: He's an obituarist who publishes one novel during the story's course, though it's allegedly not very good. Unusually for this trope, it actually enforces that he's kind of a loser, since - besides his other many faults - the boring-on-the-surface dermatologist Larry ends up having much more heart and courage than Dan does, and even hurls the word "writer" at him like an insult.
- Villain Protagonist: The story starts with him and Alice, but as it progresses it becomes increasingly obvious that he's the problem making everyone unhappy.
- Your Cheating Heart: The number one instigator and desirer of this story. He stalks Anna for a year, then cheats with her physically for another year, including in her own home and his own.
Alice Ayres/ Jane Jones
A young American girl who strikes up a relationship with Dan. Sweet, but naive, and a bit out of her comfort zone.
Tropes:
- The Ingenue: Tends to come across as younger than the rest of the cast, and is of course a kind of newcomer in coming to Britain for the first time.
- Ms. Fanservice: Worked and then works as a stripper, and the viewers get to see a lot of her.
- Token Good Teammate: The only one in the cast who never cheats or is used to cheat, and who condemns it from the start.
Anna Cameron
A photographer who is first met taking Dan's photo for a professional engagement, having recently divorced an unseen husband who had taken up with a younger woman.
Tropes:
- The Chain of Harm: Since Jude Law is technically the younger partner in the movie, one could interpret her affair with him as recreating the circumstances behind her first marriage ending but with her in control this time.
- Chronic Self-Deprecation: She seems quite disliking of herself when it comes down to it. Larry even says she's cheated on him to make him hate her, but he refuses. One could interpret her affair as an act of self-destruction alongside other things.
- Riddle for the Ages: While her actions speak very loudly, her moment-to-moment behavior and especially attraction to Dan after he stalked her for a year is very up to interpretation. Did she like the attention? Did she hate how Larry made her feel? Did she just want some fun and it spiraled? The truth is up to the production's version and the audience.
Larry Gray
A dermatologist who begins dating Anna after a convoluted failed Meet Cute at an aquarium. While he's vulgar and rough, he's also capable of saying how he feels, and is very active in the tangled web of relationships that occur.
Tropes:
- A Man Is Always Eager: He sure is. He's first seen trying to chat sexy with an alleged woman - actually Dan - in a chatroom, and a scene doesn't go by without him talking about sex he's having or wants to have or just had.
- At Least I Admit It: While everyone in the film is controlled by their desires and lust and petty feelings, he at least is capable of admitting it and being able to say it out loud, which ultimately proves an advantage.
- Hero Antagonist: While he's no rose himself, from his perspective, a man stalked his girlfriend and then wife and convinced her to cheat on him, and he then takes action to do what he thinks is best for himself and her.
Magnificent Bastard: Besides his generally dickish demeanor, he ends up pulling some very effective gambits that get him everything he wants.- Token Good Teammate: Alongside Alice. While he's also unfaithful to his partner, he comes home and tells her immediately even though he admits that he thinks she might leave him for it, which is more than can be said for her or Dan.
- Your Cheating Heart: Halfway through the film, he comes home from a business trip to New York and admits he slept with "a whore" there.
