La demoiselle d'honneur

About ten years before he decided to venture again in Ruth Rendell universe, Claude Chabrol had transferred to the screen "a Judgment in Stone" entitled "la Cérémonie" (1995). It was his last great masterwork although he somewhat betrayed the novel. The choice of Sandrine Bonnaire for the main role was ill-advised. Afterwards, his career followed a creative downswing with rather mediocre works such as "au Coeur Du Mensonge" (1999) or "Merci pour Le Chocolat" (2000). So, could a new excursion in Ruth Rendell territory boost his career again?

Alas no and the title of my summary should give you an inkling about my thoughts on the Chabrol 2004 vintage. However, there were some good elements to make the film compelling and to grab the attention. The first sequence showcases Benoît Magimel and his family in front of the TV news that reveals a murder. Perfect to weave an eerie climate. The big, imposing, eerie house in which Laura Smet lives seems to shelter dark secrets and the "bridesmaid" lives in the basement. Chabrol was also interested in the games of truth and lie that link his two main actors and real suspense lies in Magimel's personality dangerously attracted to the bridesmaid. The filmmaker's touch is also discernible at the wedding ceremony where he ridicules its crucial steps. See the church sequence and the feast which echoes to the one in "Le Boucher" (1970). While I'm evoking this meal, the gastronomy dear to Chabrol has three sequences devoted to it in the whole film. But let's come back to the bulk of the plot. Like "a Judgement in Stone", "La Demoiselle d'Honneur" was an exciting novel to read and again Chabrol skipped over some important points, notably the reasons which prompt the hero to steal the bust from Gérard Courtois (Bernard Le Coq). In the novel, he stole it because he thought that Courtois was a vulgar man, but here Magimel's motivations to steal the bust remain blurred.

The thrust of the novel and so of the film is a man who gradually loses the control of his everyday life facing a sensual, attractive disturbing young woman. However, things aren't looking good because there's an absence of unnerving climate and the scenario seems to have been sedately written, especially near the end. In another extent, I know what I'm going to write is questionable but I do think that Chabrol contemporary films suffer from the choice of the actors (see bland Jacques Dutronc in "Merci pour Le Chocolat" or Jacques Gamblin in "au Coeur Du Mensonge") and sadly "la Demoisele d'Honneur" isn't an exception to the rule. Magimel's character isn't credible at all. He should get bogged down in madness as he's deeply in love with Smet but it isn't discernible on the screen. Laura Smet (Johnny Hallyday's daughter) has a monotonous acting while Bernard Le Coq's part is underwritten. Michel Duchaussoy who was brilliant in "Que la Bête Meure" (1969) is relegated to a minor tramp role unworthy of his wide acting skills.

So, an absence of interest for this story of manipulation is surely due to its actors and also because like for "la Cérémonie", Chabrol made dull Rendell's novel. Mr Chabrol, let's put it this way: the best of your work is far behind you in time (roughly the dusk of the sixties and the dawn of the seventies) and you will probably never reach this scale again. How about contemplating retirement?

This is an interesting film in that the director Claude Chabrol had a lot of family working on the picture. These four Chabrols even had one writing the music for the film!

The story is an interesting psychological portrait of a sociopath. Philippe meets Senta at a wedding and offers to give her a lift...which she refuses. Amazingly, she soon shows up at his home and they have sex...knowing almost nothing about each other. Then, they go to her place and have sex once again. Okay...they're moving pretty fast...but what REALLY is unnerving is that she begins referring to him as 'the love of my life' and other such permanent sounding things and they barely know each other. Obviously, she has issues but Philippe is enjoying the sex and says nothing. However, as the film progresses it gets darker...much darker. Suddenly, out of the blue, she asks that he proves he lover her by killing someone. Well, she doesn't bother to wait to see what he says....she kills someone and is baffled when he isn't thrilled. What's next??

The film has no traditional style resolution. At the end of the picture, I saw two obviously different possibilities for what happens next...but you will never know. This is bound to annoy many, though I thought it wasn't that bad because the film was striving for realism as opposed to theatricality. Not a bad film...but it could have ended better for me.

In Lille, the hairdresser Christine (Aurore Clément) has raised her son and two daughters alone. Philippe Tardieu (Benoît Magimel), who works in a renovation company; Sophie Tardieu (Solène Bouton), who is going to marry Jacky (Eric Seigne) in a couple of days; and Patricia Tardieu (Anna Mihalcea),who seems to be using drugs, live with their mother in a middle-class house where Christine works. Now, while a teenager is vanished in the city, Christine invites her son and daughters to meet her boyfriend, the wealthy Gérard Courtois (Bernard Le Coq) that has just divorced and is selling his house. She gives her garden stone head of the goddess of flowers Flora that Philippe adores to Gérard that tells her that he has a business travel to Italy on the next day, but he disappears from Christine's life. In Sophie's wedding, Philippe meets her sexy bridesmaid and Jacky's cousin Stéphanie "Senta" Bellange (Laura Smet) and they have one night stand. Despite the odd behavior of the unstable and apparently imaginative Senta, Philippe immediately falls in love with her and she suggests four weird things to prove their love: planting a tree; writing a poem; having homosexual intercourse; and killing a person. When a homeless beggar is found murdered in the harbor, Philippe decides to fantasize that he had murdered the man to prove his love to Senta. On the next morning, when he wakes-up, Senta tells that she had murdered Gérard to please Philippe and describes her crime in details. Philippe decides to visit Gérard to find the truth about Senta.

"La Demoiselle d'Honneur" is an engaging thriller by Claude Chabrol that slightly recalls Alfred Hitchcock style in "Strangers on a Train". The story has many subplots to divert the viewer and the twists are excellent. This is the first movie that I have seen with the sexy and gorgeous Laura Smet and I loved her performance, in a totally different type of psychopath. Like in other films of this director, the ending is open to interpretation and I believe that Philippe has indeed called the police, but will try to help Senta during her imprisonment. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Dama de Honra" ("The Bridesmaid")

Note: On 14 January 2025, I saw this film again.

Claude Chabrol still has it in him to craft a relationship drama with trust in the dark corners of the characters, and make it seem reasonably realistic. He's working from a novel by Ruth Rendell (and I can only guess how much more detail there is in there compared to here), but it feels like vintage Chabrol, with some updates for technological bits like cell phones, as he takes a romance to very peculiar, twisted lengths that somehow the audience buys completely because of the characters and the actors playing them. In The Bridemaid he opens on Philippe (Magimel), an accountant of some sort who has a kind but mixed-up family that's getting ready for Philippe's sister's wedding. As if in a slight update on Le Boucher, Chabrol has the set-up at the wedding for the two main players, as Philippe meets bridesmaid Senta (Laura Smet), and after the wedding she arrives at his house, drenched in rain, and they have a lustful encounter.

It's pretty close to immediately after this that Senta confesses her love for him, unquestionably, as if she knew it totally on first sight, and that now he is her's and so on. Upon this one might think, sarcastically, 'this can only end well', as love at first sight, save for a Disney movie, always leads to trouble. In this case Senta is adamant that Philippe, despite also confessing his love (however true or not is a curious part of the Bridesmaid I wasn't sure was a character flaw or a flaw in the story), "prove" his love for her. This includes two easy things and two out-of-the-question: plant a tree, write a poem, kill someone, and have sex with the same sex. Although Chabrol doesn't touch on that last one, the 'kill someone' part becomes the juicy angle to the story, as one is on edge if someone is really dead or how Philippe will play the next move, and how blinded by this obsession Senta has with Philippe.

And yet Senta's obsession isn't seen as something with hysterics or over-the-top acting. Far from it, and characteristic for a Chabrol film, Smet's performance is precisely subtle and kind and intelligent and all those things that reel Philippe in against all better judgment. It's an inspired turn by an actress (excuse me, 'actor') who I hope to see more of. Same goes for Magimel, who is the 'hero' of the story as the good guy who wants to be there for his mom and troubled younger sister, but also has this strange attraction to Senta that soon pits him in an untenable (or so he thinks) position. As far as that central storyline goes between Senta and Philippe, it's gold and cool and as good as anything Chabrol did in the late 60s and 70s, with sweet hints of the erotic thrown in from time to time.

The only downsides are, naturally, some disbelief with Philippe early on, or in the initial appearances of certain twists, and especially how we're meant to put some extra stock in Philippe's family troubles (mainly Patricia as a petty thief) that aren't well developed and works mostly to show how his family is as firm, warm counterpoint to Senta's clinging and desperate 'love'. But aside from this the fan of Chabrol whose been tracking his career for however long it's been going (since the late 50s early 60s with the other Cashier du cinema team) will hopefully be pleasantly surprised to know he's still got it in him to make compelling, dramatic cinema, with the usual Hitchcockian angles amped-up to a certain sinister, and ultimately tragic, glee. 8.5/10

Having read the book 'The Bridesmaid', I was gratified that this film was a very good representation of it. It kept close to the story and did not alter anything. Even though my image of Senta as she is portrayed in the book was different to that of the one in the film, it didn't matter as her personality was accurately portrayed - indeed, all the characters were excellent. Benoit Magimel was exactly how I imagined the main character, both in looks and behaviour.

The impact of the events would have been greater to those who haven't read the book (ie I knew what was going to happen) but I found it satisfying and would highly recommend this film.

Ruth Rendell's plots are so clever, with a twist in the tail, and it is important that a film captures this, and Chabrol manages it perfectly.