I saw this movie this afternoon, and though at the end my watch assured me that it was less than 2 hours long, I had the impression I had sat through a verbatim reading of the entire 459 page novel. Endless dialogues in very literary French with the characters sitting down, filmed by a director who has no idea how to film dialogue, especially literary dialogue. The costumes were nice and so were the sets, but it reminded me of a very bad Masterpiece Theater episode.
And it's a shame, because there was the makings here for a good movie (with another director). Most of the actors and actresses looked their parts, with the annoying exception of the male lead, who looked convincing at 20 but way too boyish - or girlish - for 30. The novel is interesting. (Though the premise is obvious and doesn't sustain almost 500 pages. The novel would be better known if it were a lot shorter.) A much better script could have been the basis for a good movie. (The script was evidently by the director.)
And then there were the annoying small mistakes. Why, in the middle of a movie that sticks close to its historical period, c. 1835, do the characters do a rendition of a German popular song from the 1920s that sounds very 1920s? Why, at the opening of the movie, is the date 1835 given with the tag "the period of Choderlos de Laclos"? Laclos died in 1805 and his one remembered work, Les Liaisons dangereuses, dates from 1782. This story so very clearly dates from the Restoration and right after it, the period Balzac, Barbey's real contemporary, described so well in Eugénie Grandet, with its aristocracy moving ever further to a moral and sexual right wing - as we see in poor Ermangarde, who is afraid to enjoy sex.
As I said, the acting here was fine, the sets and costumes ditto. But the dialogue was leaden as was the direction, and I found the male lead annoying.
A major disappointment.
And it's a shame, because there was the makings here for a good movie (with another director). Most of the actors and actresses looked their parts, with the annoying exception of the male lead, who looked convincing at 20 but way too boyish - or girlish - for 30. The novel is interesting. (Though the premise is obvious and doesn't sustain almost 500 pages. The novel would be better known if it were a lot shorter.) A much better script could have been the basis for a good movie. (The script was evidently by the director.)
And then there were the annoying small mistakes. Why, in the middle of a movie that sticks close to its historical period, c. 1835, do the characters do a rendition of a German popular song from the 1920s that sounds very 1920s? Why, at the opening of the movie, is the date 1835 given with the tag "the period of Choderlos de Laclos"? Laclos died in 1805 and his one remembered work, Les Liaisons dangereuses, dates from 1782. This story so very clearly dates from the Restoration and right after it, the period Balzac, Barbey's real contemporary, described so well in Eugénie Grandet, with its aristocracy moving ever further to a moral and sexual right wing - as we see in poor Ermangarde, who is afraid to enjoy sex.
As I said, the acting here was fine, the sets and costumes ditto. But the dialogue was leaden as was the direction, and I found the male lead annoying.
A major disappointment.