The Rich Man's Wife is a 1996 American thriller film written and directed by Amy Holden Jones and starring Halle Berry.

She convinces him to join her for a romantic getaway at a secluded lakeside cabin, but when it becomes obvious his concerns about the studio are going to take precedence over relaxation, she begrudgingly tells him to return home but decides to stay on her own for a few days.

Her Jeep breaks down on a dark, secluded country road and as she starts to hike to the cabin, Cole pulls up in his truck and offers her a lift.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times observed, "The movie proceeds more or less satisfactorily for 94 minutes, and then in the last 60 seconds expects us to revise everything we thought we knew, or guessed, or figured out - just because of an arbitrary ending.".

[2] Lawrence van Gelder of The New York Times said, "The film owes no little debt to Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Strangers on a Train and to all those movies in which homicidal maniacs pop up unexpectedly, lone women hear creaking doors and ominous footsteps, thunderstorms erupt at convenient moments and couples who share disturbing confidences speed along dark, deserted roads while windshield wipers sweep across close-ups of their tense faces.

Rich Man's Wife also owes a debt to its audience, whose credibility is sorely taxed at turning points where sensible individuals would disagree with Josie's actions.

"[3] Calling the film "a passable genre piece with weird plot twists and mediocre acting from the gorgeous Berry," Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle compared it to "the old Lana Turner melodramas with the glossy sets, soft-focus photography and operatic emotional range."

He continued, "Jones serves this slice of ham with slick direction and Haskell Wexler's handsome photography, and keeps twisting the plot and our presumptions right up to the final scene.

"[4] Barbara Shulgasser of the San Francisco Examiner felt the only reason to see the film "is to watch a charming actress called Clea Lewis .

Writer-director Amy Holden Jones has written other ridiculous scripts before, including the one for Indecent Proposal, but she directed the laudable Jamie Lee Curtis vehicle Love Letters, so there really is no excuse for the sheer ineptitude of this movie.

"[5] Godfrey Cheshire of Variety said, "Thrills have seldom seemed as routine as they do in The Rich Man's Wife, a lady-and-the-psycho yarn so generic it might have been constructed by computer printout .