L'amante inglese

'Partir' (2009) is my first encounter with a film by the French director Catherine Corsini. The impression is mostly positive. Corsini (who is also the main author of the film's script) seems to me to be a mature filmmaker, master of her means of cinematic expression and well focused on the feminist thematics. She's also the type of director who knows how to choose the actors who fit her vision of the roles, letting them chose how they see the characters. In the case of this film, the lead role is played by the excellent Kristin Scott Thomas. The presence of this actress whom I appreciate a lot was the main reason why I chose to see the film. I was not wrong.

Suzanne, the film's heroine, seems to have everything she could wish in life. She is married to a wealthy doctor, lives in a sumptuous villa in the south of France decorated with modern works of art, has two teenage children who don't seem to cause any trouble. Looking for more interest in life, she plans to resume her occupation as a physiotherapist interrupted by the time she had to take care of the children. When she meets Ivan, a renovation tradesman, immigrant from Spain, who seems to have had problems with justice, what the French call 'coup de foudre' happens between the two. Does Suzanne and Ivan's relationship have any chance of being more than a simple extramarital affair? Everything seems to be against them - the husband's refusal to accept that he is losing his wife, economic conditions, social status. The price of fulfilling love seems to be huge.

I liked the directorial approach. Catherine Corsini doesn't judge her characters or condition her viewers to how they should feel. What happens between Suzanne and Ivan seems neither obvious nor inevitable. Nor is Samuel, the husband, an obnoxious figure, justifying feelings other than, perhaps, boredom. Kristin Scott Thomas has a complex and interesting role. Her Suzanne seems to be overwhelmed by feelings that erupt late in life. Attempts to control them rationally fail repeatedly in the face of emotions, and the woman herself seems bewildered by what is happening to her. Fighting the system and the people around has little chance of success. The two men in Suzanne's life are played by Sergi López and Yvan Attal. Both are excellent actors, although their roles are not as plentiful. 'Partir' manages to overcome the limits of a routine family drama and gives viewers a taste of true life and genuine feelings.

Kristin Scott Thomas has tended to play hard-ass women who keep their emotions in check, but in LEAVING the ice-princess doesn't just melt, she gives off steam! The sex scenes between Suzanne, the bored Parisian housewife, and her beefy Spanish builder are fairly bracing; it's clearly not his intellect that she's fallen for. Swapping her sterile modern house (irony here: her dull husband's a surgeon) for a seedy suburban apartment doesn't seem to faze her, but drama - indeed, melodrama - is lurking on the horizon. The director gives most of the ending away at the beginning (echoes of Sunset Boulevard), which I thought was a mistake.

Wife takes lover, tragedy ensues: it's a hoary old plot that shouldn't work but it does, thanks entirely to Scott Thomas's incandescent performance. Hopefully, she'll win awards for this.

I enjoyed several aspects to the film, Partir. The opening scene catches the audience's attention by showing two of the main characters and an unexplained gunshot. The entire film keeps you intrigued and on your toes wondering what will happen next all leading up to that mysterious gunshot from the beginning. The director, Catherine Corsini , was born and 1956 and is a French director and screenwriter. She has directed 15 films since 1982, her latest being Partir, and her most famous La repetition was entered into the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. One idea found in the film is the determination to find true love and happiness. Suzanne is unhappy with her husband and children and she falls for a man, Ivan, which she eventually will do anything for. Another important idea in the film is marital problems. Suzanne falls in love with another man, confesses her affair but finds out she can no longer love her husband regardless of the money and housing her husband had provided her. An aspect of the film I noticed was that there was barely any music. The silence between scenes and conversations created more suspense and wonderment. For example, the scene when Suzanne tells her husband about the affair is completely silent throughout the conversation, which causes to you really engage in the scene. A second aspect to the film I enjoyed was the symbolism of the two houses Suzanne is torn between. There is her husband's house that is large, spacious, and dark, whereas Ivan's home is small, but is bright and welcoming. I recommend this film if you enjoy drama, suspense, and unexpected twists.

Kristen Scott Thomas is excellent in 'Leaving', a traumatic but excellent film about the break up of a relationship. Much is acutely observed here: the casually indifferent husband who becomes a monster when crossed; the affair, depicted without moral judgement, that attains unexpected emotional significance because of the previously hidden fault-lines it exposes; the sex scenes, unusually effective, in which much is conveyed through the pattern of breath. Plus there's a luscious (but sensitive) soundtrack, and Scott Thomas's brilliant performance as a woman gradually losing her grip on first happiness, and then sanity. The ending is subtly different to the one first suggested: that it is a happier one is unclear in a dark tale.

She cheats, she lies, she leaves her family. You'd have every right to hate Suzanne, yet you don't. The one you hate is her self-righteous husband. It's nothing short of a miracle how Kristin Scott-Thomas and Yvan Attal pull it off. Admittedly, the script makes sure her betrayal brings out the worst in him, but I doubt you would take her side so easily if you read about it in a novel. It rings so true because writer-director Catherine Corsini works with a fine script and a first-rate cast. The way Sam cuts Suzanne off from the family fortune may be stretching the facts of civil law a tad, but it goes to show that there's no equality without economic independence. Despite its strong social message, the movie keeps you on the edge of your seat like a thriller. Take your family.