Thérèse Desqueyroux

(Claude Miller/2012/France)

Thérèse is from a wealthy family and is married into another wealthy family to expand and grow the business of both. The marriage of convenience becomes a spiritual trap in which she devolves into a distant being devoid of interest in her husband and his family with a persistent thousand yard stare. Her involvement in her sister in laws affair sparks brief fantasies of escape and a desire for a more intellectual existence. However her actual attempt at escaping her situation goes awry and she is disgraced within the family and without, leading to depression and physical decline. Her husband releases her from the constraint of the marriage and she begins a new chapter of life in Paris, free at last. It would be a mistake to think this an existential film, instead of exercising free will or activating any philosophical challenge to her plight Thérèse mopes throughout. She also displays a staggering lack of empathy for her own child, an innocent in the whole affair. I found her to be a spoilt brat of sorts, incapable of confronting the society she finds herself trapped in and resorting to sulkiness as a result. Maybe I’m missing the point; it is a period piece and an example of the social mores and failings of a previous era. That said I found it hard to sympathise with Tatou’s rather one dimensional portrayal. Her husband, a self absorbed boor, is played brilliantly by Gilles Lellouche however. The film is shot beautifully with many moments akin to paintings frozen onscreen. François Mauriac’s novel of the same name begins in the middle and uses flashbacks and inner monologues to show past events before moving towards the finish. Miller’s film rearranges the sequence to a linear start, middle and end which works fine. It’s an engaging and gentle film but intensely dreary at points and struggles to impart a message. Thérèse gains her freedom through no machination of her own but by the compassion of the man that represents all that she is trying to escape. So what is it saying? If you wait(sulk) long enough your unhappy situation will sort itself out? I don’t know. After such an illustrious career it was unfortunate that this was to be Miller’s last film.

(2/5)