La geôlière

In Ireland, the lonely artist Sarah (Anne Brochet) finds an unconscious castaway (James Spader) drowned at the beach with a broken leg. She brings him home and treats him. When he awakens, he has amnesia and can not remember who he is or what has happened to him. Sarah tells that they are isolated in an island and a boat will arrive with supplies only a couple of months later. However they are indeed in the continent but Sarah hides the location from the man. Along the days, she feels obsessed by him and she seduces him and they have a love affair. When he feels better, he decides to snoop around trying to leave the island. But the deranged Sarah will do anything to keep him with her.

"Driftwood" is a suspenseful romance with a story of loneliness, insanity and obsession. The plot uses parts of the storyline of "Misery" and other films of attraction. Anne Brochet gives a great performance and has a great chemistry with James Spader. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Prisioneiro da Ilha" ("Prisoner of the Island")

Anne Brochet and James Spader give excellent performances. Though the storyline is not particularly orignial I found both to be very believable characters. (Anne Brochet, hauntingly so) The plot is a more likely, and subtle, variation on the "Fatal Attraction" theme. Unlike Glen Close's character in Fatal Attraction Sarah (Brochet) is a very likable and attractive woman ... well, except for a little problem with "abandonment issues". <smile> The power of the conflict this movie generates is tied to Spader's (and the viewers) empathy for Sarah. I would highly recommend this movie for those viewers that tend to like "character driven" movies.

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.

You don't really notice it at first, but Anne Brochet is deceptively cute. Intitially she seems almost plain, then you get a crush on her and think it is your own special crush. Then you realize she was Roxanne in Cyrano with Depardieau. Anyway, this is an interesting little movie about obsession and deception and Spader is interesting, even when doing mundane things.

I really think that this movie might have been classified as one of James Spader's great movies if the story line wasn't so screwed up and half the movie wasn't based on sex alone. The movie concerns a lonely French girl who finds a shipwrecked sailor and tries to keep him for herself. The movie would be believable except it's quite impossible for 2 people to jump into bed and suddenly be in love with each other. I think the movie itself was quite good, cast well and filmed well with attention paid more to acting than material detail. Get rid of the mentally disturbed and the distasteful sex and you've got a great movie.