Partir

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.

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.

"Partir," shown in the U.S. as "Leaving" (2009) was co-written and directed by Catherine Corsini.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays Suzanne, a French wife and mother who is bored with her "perfect" life. She is rich, beautiful, and seemingly happily married.

However, she decides to do something more than just be idle, so she returns to her earlier profession of physical therapy. Her husband is paying for an office for his wife, which will be adjacent to their home. Although wealthy, he squeezes every Euro out of the building contractor. That causes the contractor to hire a Spanish worker, who will work for non-union wages. Suzanne falls passionately in love with the worker--Ivan--and what happens next makes up the plot of the movie.

As someone pointed out on the message board, no one behaves intelligently. When she is desperate for money, Suzanne--despite her education and her elegance and beauty--ends up doing manual labor at the lowest level. (Literally--she's picking vegetables.) Didn't she consider working in a dress shop or as a receptionist if she couldn't find a PT position?

Kristin Scott Thomas is English, but she lives in France. She's very convincing as a woman who arrived in France when she was very young, and now is completely French. The movie manages to work because Scott Thomas has so much star power and such a strong screen presence. However, beauty and elegance can only take a movie so far. If you analyze the film carefully, the whole thing falls apart.

I saw the movie on DVD, and that worked well for the interpersonal aspects. However, there were several scenes of great natural beauty, which were lost on the small screen. I don't think that Partir is a movie worth seeking out, except if you are dazzled by Kristin Scott Thomas, who is in virtually every scene. However, I think it's somewhat better than the very low IMDb rating would suggest.

Leaving (2009)

A very dry slice of life, and a common and awful slice of life--the breakup of a seemingly okay marriage. It's a very modern, well off, pan European series of events, mostly taking place in the south of France. There is devastation, violence, sex, hurt children, hurt friends, and mostly a lot of pain between the ecstasies. And I suppose that's how it really goes down. Fair enough.

But not necessarily the most engaging movie. I'm not talking about being entertained, but about being lifted, or made to rethink something serious, or maybe even be swept away in something lyrical. Not so. This is deliberately (or not) a study in realism, and yet a glossy one, with some neat ends tied up here and there. I mean, it may be a series of fairly realistic events, but this is a simplified, "nice" world.

The one really solid reason to watch this is the stellar, nuanced, deeply felt performance by British actress Kristin Scott Thomas. The range of moods is amazing, and moving, if you can get absorbed otherwise.

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.