Belle du Seigneur

The film is unfortunately a deceptive adaptation of this great and complicate XXth century love story novel by Albert Cohen. Some women friends of mine commented, it's pretty unconceivable to understand how a male writer could so well understand and describe and write (about) woman's psychology, woman's inside.

I loved the book a lot but not the film, pretty poor. I like Meyers as an actor but here, imho, he looks too young (he was 35 then) as Solal, even if Solal had a vertiginous social climb.

At about 31 minutes into the film, we can see a very nice wood house at the Geneva lake. I knew the (unnice) owners so I went there once or twice. For the ones interested, you can see it in Promenthoux at 46.391986° 6.267007° in Google Maps.

Belle du seigneur (the book) is the most beautiful declaration of love I've ever read so obviously I was intrigued when I saw that the movie existed. What a disappointment. The actors are terrible. (Particularly Natalia Vodianova... seriously ?!). The movie can't even begin to describe Ariane and Solal's passion.

One of the best movies made,but it's not for everyone, it has betrayal, delusional ideals and anything a good drama should have. Jonathan's best movie apart from The Tudors, and match point. The movie contains scenes where it's hard to follow and that becomes intriguing you wanna know more. By all means the book was excellent but it's nice to see a movie version which usually never does justice to the paper format. The supporting actress didn't have many lines and wasn't your conventional housewife but her beauty and charm captured him, somehow. If you have time and are confused watch this movie it will keep you busy and interested particularly if you had a fight with your lover it will entertain you.

This is also known as "A Grand Affair ".

The movie did nothing for me, though I enjoyed the glorious settings in Europe (especially Italy) and the stunning architecture. The era is WWII, the story portraying miserable, dislikable characters. We have the Don Juan scenario of Jonathan Rhys-Myers' character, Solal (a high level exec at the then League of Nations in Geneva) seducing his subordinate Adrien's wife Ariane (Natalia Vodianova). Ariane succumbs willingly after a couple of meetings, Adrien is kicked into professional obscurity and the other two embark on their journey of passion.

Then follows scene after scene of sex, fighting, self-introspection, more fighting, more sex. Solal, who - despite his self-assurance as an experienced seducer - seems unsure of himself, fixating on Ariane's past lovers and getting violent; she walks away, comes back (to more sex and introspection). And thus it goes.

Other viewers will no doubt find deeper meaning here, but really how much sex does one need to get it across? The backdrops, costumes, buildings are lovely to behold but ultimately cannot carry the story on their own. One has to be invested in the characters, and I wasn't.

This movie is not made for people in the "progressive" and "modern" world mindset , in this movie you'll see what unconditional love looks like and what it doesn't look like , you can watch this movie over and over again and each time learn something new about the two main characters, A true seducers story.