A Mulher do Lado

A young, almost boyish Gerard Depardieu stars in 'The Woman Next Door', one of Francois Truffaut's later films. In some ways, it's a stereotypically French affair, a stylish and urbane story of passionate love. But the film itself, though nicely observed, fails to really catch fire. One reason may be the fact that their isn't much in the way of character development, not because the characters are one-dimensional but because they are fully described in the premise, and change little thereafter. We are told that the central figures are in love, but know they could not live together, and what follows is merely the logical exposition of this. Another is that they themselves seem the biggest obstacles to their own happiness. Therefore, though the film is watchable throughout, as a whole it amounts to little more than a collection of its parts, rather than a great and profound tragedy. Other work by this director packed a greater punch.

In Grenoble, Bernard Coudray (Gérard Depardieu) and his wife Arlette Coudray (Michèle Baumgartner) are happily married with their son Thomas. When the next door house is rented to the flight controller Philippe Bauchard (Henri Garcin) and his wife Mathilde Bauchard (Fanny Ardant), Arlette invites the couple for a dinner party but Bernard avoids Mathilde. When they meet each other in the supermarket, they recall their love affair that traumatically ended eight years ago. However their love rekindles and they meet each other in a hotel room. But once together again, they have a stormy affair that ends again with tragic consequences.

"La femme d'à côté", a.k.a. "The Woman Next Door", is a tragic and powerful romance by François Truffaut with the love story of a stormy couple reunited again after eight years by chance but that cannot be together. The performances are magnificent and the conclusion is predictable. The final quote of the narrator Madame Odile Jouve for their epitaph is perfect ("Neither with you, nor without you."). My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Mulher do Lado" ("The Woman Next Door")

Bernard is happily married to his wife Arlette and has a son, Thomas. One day a new couple move in next door: Philippe and Mathilde, the latter of whom is a seductive woman with a secret -- she used to be Bernard's lover...

I love Truffaut's films (of the ones I've seen, anyway) and when I approached this I had a genuine fear of disappointment -- it's one of his later films and I hadn't heard very much about it.

I was surprised to find it's an excellent love story/character examination and better than it is generally given credit for. It's the typically tragic tale reminiscent of those we've seen before in cinema -- a French Romeo and Juliet.

Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant are perfect together and their chemistry sparks. They have the experience that indicates an older relationship; it's very believable, in other words.

Roger Van Hool has a good role as Roland and the rest of the cast are superb as well. Overall this is a fascinating examination of love, marriage, romance, adultery, betrayal and life. In the hands of a master storyteller it is an almost flawless motion picture and certainly one of the best of the decade (one which, incidentally, is not known for producing many good pictures by most critics).

The magic of movies are really present in here, otherwise how come a story that sounds so familiar to us looks very fresh, all brand new to your eyes and ears? François Truffaut makes of "La femme d'à Côté" ("The Woman Next Door"), an apparent clichéd love story, to have the enormous feel of being something complete unknown to us (Obvisouly the film has its moments of originality though).

Bernard (Gérard Depardieu) lives in a small community along with wife (Michèle Baumgartner) and his son, all is happy and well until the house next to his gets bought by the Bauchard (Henri Garcin and Fanny Ardant), a friendly couple, being Mathilde, the woman of the film's title, an old affair of Bernard. And you don't need to be a genius to guess that these two will start off again from the point where they stopped, after years without seeing each other. What is quite obvious as well is that the combination old flames on a new affair might have some tragic consequences for everybody involved.

In "La femme d'à Côté" Truffaut finally managed to balance the instabilities between the characters involved in a relationship, something that, at my view, was only noticed when we pay attention to the female characters like Catherine from "Jules et Jim" and the title character of "The Story of Adele H." in which only the women acted out of desperation, lost their sanity and went through hell with their love affairs. In this more original scenario the man is driven to the point of madness, completely alienated from everything, just thinking in living with his lover (even though, again, it's the woman who suffers more throughout the film). It is balanced since in the other classics the men didn't seem to care much for what was happening to the women (specially in "Adele H." the man was completely cold, ruthless towards the girl who at one time was the love of his life).

And who narrates Bernard and Mathilde's story? An old lady named Madame Odile (nicely played by Véronique Silver), a handicapped woman who survived a suicide attempt by jumping from a building right after being rejected by the man she loved (You can take your conclusions from here). Her story is perfectly connected with the main story of the film.

The way the story swings from a soft comedy, quite gentle in its pace, from a romantic film to a complex drama, all these changes were greatly presented, the variations work because we have a director that really knows how to perform them. But this film doesn't go without some problems, there's some difficult things to accept and see (like when Bernard can't hold any longer his anguish and decides, in front of everybody during a party to show his love for Mathilde in the most dreadful way, a real scandal) as things happening in reality (and most of the film looks realistic so why this created situations in which people couldn't relate with it?). Small problems, nothing so distractive or ruining, neither something that deserves a negative review (the two bad ones featured on the site are amazingly incoherent, illogical, and ridiculous just to say a few words about them).

If the story isn't good enough to make you watch this film, at least go for the director and the actors involved with it, Ardant and Depardieu on their greatest level of acting playing what could be a perfect couple if it wasn't for their complicated lives with their spouses. A special moment from them is their first kiss at the market's parking garage when the woman simply faints on him. Looks absurd but can be explained as something really powerful, all those emotions resurrecting, coming to life again. "What now?" or "Should we start all over again?". And that was only the beginning, going for a newer ending. This time for good. Neither with you or without you. 9/10

Very good movie with excellent performances from Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant. The emotions and performances are outstanding. If you have ever felt a strong love that borders on the irrational, then you may identify with this film. There are some small flaws of coincidences in the story. I found the last 20 minutes quite disturbing, and wish the writers found a different one. It seems to imply that real love must have a tragic ending. It is sort of an 19th Century "romantic" ending. Perhaps, that's what they were shooting for in the modern cotext of France in the 1980's. But nonetheless one of Truffaut's better films. What do you think?