La femme d'à côté

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")

La Femme d'a Cote shows violent emotional state of two melancholic lovers.Truffaut wanted to reveal the extreme steps of frustrated love.It is a brilliant story of passion set in the provincial french town of Grenoble which shows that love is the only thing that is universal.Bernard and Mathilde are truly the perfect lovers Truffaut wished to exploit in his film.There is a sense of urgency in their love affair as in a place where all the people know each other,it is highly improbable that any love affair can remain a secret.La Femme d'a Cote has agreeably given an idea about small town charm wherein Truffaut has vividly portrayed all the minor details of provincial life.Truffaut,while filming La Femme d'a Cote,hoped that the viewer would not be tempted to take sides in order to call one wrong and the other wrong but would love them both as he has loved them.Truffaut will remain the only filmmaker who has mastered the art of human emotions.La Femme d'a Cote gives an impression of an affecting account of human foibles by illustrating how a happy married man sacrifices everything for trivial passion.

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?

A pair of spinning magnets, correspondingly attract, then rotate a little further, universally detract, pulling one way for a while, as they slowly reconcile, then pushing, pushing, pushing, until both of them retract.

It's a can't live with you, can't live without you tale, but you've seen it many times before, as it's hoisted many sails, the difference this time round, is the lady is profound, a performance of some standing, lifts it right up off the ground - but apart from the adorable Fanny Ardant there isn't a lot else to get too excited about, although the rest of the ensemble perform their roles adequately and Gérard Depardieu is more than believable in his highly volatile moments.

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).