La geôlière

When an unknown man with amnesia (Spader) is washed up on a secluded beach of Northern Ireland, he is taken in by a solitary eccentric spinster (Brochet)and it becomes immediately apparent that she has "control issues." Since he has a broken leg, he's temporarily at her mercy and tries to humor her as she becomes increasingly strange. Brochet plays "Sarah" so well that the viewer soon surmises that beneath her elfin winsomeness lies some dangerous emotional and mental instability which will eventually erupt. She succeeds in seducing the stranger and thereafter regards him as her personal possession. The arguments with her old harpy of a mother are telling. When the couple have a special candlelit dinner commemorating his sexual surrender, she appears wearing a weird lacy gown strongly suggesting the mad Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations." Viewer interest will be maintained until the inevitable tragic result of the man breaking free of the coerced relationship which bears a familiar parallel in reverse to "The Collector."

This movie gives a good idea of the state of Irish cinema today. Anne Brochet gave an interesting performance with a very French accent--one of the annoying factors in a film set in Ireland. One can understand if the castaway had a French accent but not a character who is supposed to be a denizen of Ireland. James Spader gives an uninspired performance.

The minor roles were were well played.

The most uplifting part of the film was the song at the end which was better than the rest of the film.

It's a movie about a woman who finds a man on a seashore next to her home. She is a sculptor, she takes him in, he doesn't remember his name, she tells him they're alone on the island. To us it's obvious she's lying, and a matter of time that they will end up in bed and he'll find out she's lying. Not boring, just not very interesting. And her talking to her deceased mother is really redundant. The ending is SO annoying and foreseen. Probably a nice story, bad movie though.

We enjoyed this movie quite a lot. Anne Brochet's character, Sarah, was a spinster, a psycho, yet quite erotic. James Spader is always good, and he did a great job going from confused to falling in love to fearing for his life.

There were a couple of strange problems that ruined things for us a little, though. The story was set in the islands off Ireland, yet Anne Brochet did not try to hide her strong French accent. I don't remember an explanation of her being French. Her mother appeared as a ghost, and her mother had an English accent. Huh???

The sex scenes were great, Anne Brochet has a fantastic body. We didn't think they were overdone or gratuitous.

Overall, it was a great movie. Intriguing and a nice look inside the mind of a strange, isolated person. Was the plot predictable? Yes. But that's okay sometimes.

I liked this movie.

The acting was good and the story believable.

The woman had a morbid fear of abandonment and intended to keep the man at all costs.

The man's amnesia, though never explained, was credible, and so was his desire to leave.

Their sexual relationship was understandable and probably inevitable.

The story unfolded naturally, and I cared about the characters. I was never bored and never felt that the action was too slow. It held my interest.

I found the epilogue believable, ironic, likely, and haunting.