La fille coupée en deux

"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young." Oscar Wilde

I'm cut in two myself: wanting A Girl Cut in Two to be a companion piece to Patrice Leconte's unforgettable Girl on the Bridge (1999) and yet realizing it is wrong to expect such a complement. French icon Claude Chabrol's Girl Cut is an amusing and agonizing romance between an older writer and a young TV weather girl, about 30 years in between their ages. The story of the lost young woman and her older carnival knife thrower in Girl on a Bridge has layers of emotion where Girl Split contains little depth but the same type of metaphors.

Girl Cut recycles the January-May love affair, similar to the recent Elegy about a young woman and an older professor. The immediate attraction between the two is not explored, just the girl's voluptuousness and his pot-belly, receding hair, and low energy level. But then I should not forget the ultimate aphrodisiac: intellectualism. The common denominator is the mind meld, enacted by an aging thinker/artist and a young open mind.

The figurative splitting is woven into the plot: A spoiled, rich young man, Paul Gaudens (Benoit Magimel), falls for an indifferent Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier), who has a yearning for the older writer Charles Saint-Denis (Francoise Berleand). The triangle illustrates the complex yearnings of an attractive young woman, whose mother (Marie Bunel) spies Gabrielle's need for the father figure as well as her own wish for her daughter to be financially comfortable. The warfare among the classes is typically Francaise.

As for Gabrielle, it is never clear where her love for the old man comes from, for she never seems to read his works, and their interaction before the first tryst is superficial. Perhaps she has a thing for big bellies and bald pates.

Maybe I was wrong to see first THE GIRL ON THE RED VELVET SWING, reissued in Paris on the very day Chabrol presented his last movie.

The true story of Evelyn Nesbit, magnificently filmed by Richard Fleischer in 1955 with Ray Milland, Joan Collins and Farley Granger, is rewritten by Chabrol and Cécile Maistre without the slightest credit for TGRVS, unfortunately unavailable either on DVD or VHS. Chabrol is a very talented director, with a long and successful career, based essentially on cruel criticism of his own class (the French Bourgeoisie), which provided him with everything necessary to achieve a long career, certainly not without merit. The man, some time ago reputed for drawing his stories while playing Gottlieb electric pool with his friends, has certainly great talent in directing the best available actors.

Unfortunately, in spite of combined efforts, the script is a mere copy of TGRVS,moved into modern France's literary and cynical wealthy world.But the "bourgeois", everywhere, are typical masochists.The actors are good, especially François Berléand performing the Ray Milland role, but Benoit Magimel's is a mere caricature of the part played by Farley Granger in 1955.

There is a general lack of inspiration governing the cinema of today; exceptions like INTERVIEW, by and with Steve Buscemi,plus Sienna Miller, although reminding vaguely Mankiewicz's SLEUTH, but propped by strong professionalism, are much more attractive than this pale copy of Fleischer's chef d'oeuvre.

It seems that Evelyn Nesbit has also inspired E.Doctorow and Milos Forman, for RAGTIME. I hope somebody would bring it back on our screens, or on TV, while Chabrol's imitation is still on. Harry Carasso, Paris, France

At this point in Claude Chabrol's career one might expect him to cut loose and do something just totally crazy and not to give a hoot about his consistent style as a director. A Girl Cut in Two, for better or worse, is still disciplined and carefully constructed and directed, and maybe because of this once in a while suffers from not wavering in its approach; it's kind of like That Almost Obscure Object of Desire. But within its set terms the film is enjoyable and even has a kind of biting underlying wit to the proceedings.

I would think this film might appeal more to the middle or lower class as opposed to upper class and wealthy as the former can perhaps relish in this tumultuous love life of this weather girl Gabrielle (very beautiful Ludivine Sagnier, kind of a prettier Chloe Sevigny) and the classic "turning the men's worlds upside down" formula. As for fans of Chabrol, and this goes without saying it's not a great film, it's a sign that, like Woody Allen, he isn't going anywhere and still has some ideas kicking around.

It's about the effect Gabrielle has on a man twice her age, novelist Charles Saint-Denis (Francois Berleand in a quietly powerful and thoughtful performance), and a spoiled and possibly emotionally combustible guy more her age, Paul (Benoit Magimel, very good in that his performance is narrowed to being this creepy person). She really is head over heels for the older man, who sadly is also (happily) married to his wife of many years, while Paul does all but wave a sign saying "pick me, I'm free, pick me" (with the line "I get what I always want" crossed out save for when he's drunk). It's like a double Catch 22 situation, leading up to a marriage, a murder, and other occurrences. Chabrol presents all of this in what appears to be a straightforward style, which usually suits him best, and within this comes out the moral complexities.

This could be enough for a decent movie, if maybe a little slight in the mostly bourgeois atmosphere, but Chabrol heaps on some social commentary to boot: it's not just Paul but also Charles that put up a kind of front of complacency that is hard to crack for Gabrielle. It's slightly playful, mostly harsh, but always controlled satire, not of the laugh-out-loud kind but where one might chuckle or raise an eyebrow at a plot point or scene of specific acting. It's an interesting approach which isn't entirely effective but never makes it boring. A Girl Cut in Two is acted just as it should (Caroline Silhol particularly gives a deliciously icy performance as Paul's mother), and is written and directed with a knowledge of its audience. 7.5/10

"A Girl Cut In Two" is the kind of movie that requires a lot of patience from its audience (it moves slowly and runs long), without really rewarding them for it at the end. Listed by IMDb as a drama/thriller, it is basically a drama about a young weather girl (and later TV show host) caught in two parallel relationships with a middle-aged writer and a rich heir about her age, with the "thriller" part (such as it is) coming into play only in the last 20 minutes. One of the main problems with the film is that the viewer can see right away that neither of these relationships is going to work out - the older man is married and just looking for cheap thrills, the younger man acts borderline psychotic right from the start - and you wonder how the heroine, who seems fairly smart in most ways, can be so naive as to not see that these two men are unworthy of her time. Perhaps the two most likable characters - the heroine's uncle and the young man's little sister - have very little screen time. The film is very well-acted, especially by Ludivine Sagnier and Francois Berléand, but ultimately it is a minor work for someone of Claude Chabrol's great reputation. (**)

The premise of the movie, that two super-size ego men, one young and rich and the other old and famous, go after a young woman, who doesn't know what she is getting into, is interesting. Unfortunately, the woman's feelings for the two seem to develop at a fast food pace that undermines the credibility of the entire story. Some reviewers have argued that the central female character is more complex and nuanced than previous attempts by director Claude Chabrol. If so, I cannot imagine how misogynist his previous movies were. Still worth it, especially for the acting performance by François Berléand. If you want to pay attention to a sexy and attractive woman in the movie, though, forget about the main character, and focus on Capucine, played by Mathilda May.