In this erotic melodrama, Jeremy Irons is tall, elegant, imperially slim, impeccably groomed and coiffed, the very model of a modern major minister. He's a distinctive looking fellow with his big, sunken eyes and thin, almost cyanotic lips. He's a member of parliament here, about to be offered a cabinet position. He's a husband and a father and lives in a more-than-comfortable home where his wife's family has been for more than two hundred years. But he's a fool nonetheless.
One day, his son, Martyn (Rupert Graves), brings home a girl friend (Juliette Binoche) whom he plans to marry. Irons and his wife (Miranda Richardson)greet her politely, but Irons and Binoche seem unable to break off their interlocked gazes. Returning home, Irons finds Binoche waiting for him. She sits on the edge of the bed, then wordlessly slides to the floor, where they make rough love like two aardvarks in heat. Thereafter, despite the marriage plans of Binoche and Graves, she and Irons meet often and make love all over the place. I mean, on the floor, on staircases, in bathrooms, in empty city doorways, on a sea of broken marmalade jars. (Well, no, I made that last one up.) Irons knows he's endangering everything he holds dear. She may be forbidden fruit, but she's very willing to drop. They can't seem to break it off.
There is a visit by Binoche's mother, Leslie Caron, who -- being French and female -- can tell simply from the glances during dinner between Irons and Binoche, or rather their complete absence, what's going on. She warns Irons to knock it off, and he agrees, but, as he already knows, he can't.
Tragedy ensues. While Irons and Binoche are going after it in their usual gymnastic way in a bare hotel room, Graves enters by accident and, stunned, backs away and tumbles over the balcony railing to his death several floors below. Irons loses everything -- his son, his wife, his lover, his job. He winds up in a foreign land, gray haired, supposedly poor but living in an apartment that looks more comfortable, if not as exotic, as the hovel I inhabit.
This was directed by Louis Malle, who has done some splendid work, all of it sensitive to relatively minor interactional exchanges -- glances, silences, the reply that does not quite answer the question. The family is seated at their usually elaborate dinner and someone remarks to Graves that his life has been nearly perfect. He pauses and says with a smile that he wishes he were a little more passionate about things. His mother comments, "You must have gotten that lack of passion from me." "No," he says, "I think it was from Dad." The kid has no idea what passion his old man is capable of. Yes, dear old Dad is a human tea kettle with its lid flopping up and down and nobody but Juliette Binoche has the slightest clue.
It's flawlessly shot, directed, and acted, but the script is a bit hackneyed. And although it keeps our interest and is realistically based on the kinds of conflicts we all experience, the story is rather slender. Two people getting after it, who shouldn't. Sometimes you must deny the impulses your glands put you up to. What we wind up with is "Romeo and Juliette." The film can't be easily dismissed -- a tragedy whose end everyone can see coming except the two protagonists.
One day, his son, Martyn (Rupert Graves), brings home a girl friend (Juliette Binoche) whom he plans to marry. Irons and his wife (Miranda Richardson)greet her politely, but Irons and Binoche seem unable to break off their interlocked gazes. Returning home, Irons finds Binoche waiting for him. She sits on the edge of the bed, then wordlessly slides to the floor, where they make rough love like two aardvarks in heat. Thereafter, despite the marriage plans of Binoche and Graves, she and Irons meet often and make love all over the place. I mean, on the floor, on staircases, in bathrooms, in empty city doorways, on a sea of broken marmalade jars. (Well, no, I made that last one up.) Irons knows he's endangering everything he holds dear. She may be forbidden fruit, but she's very willing to drop. They can't seem to break it off.
There is a visit by Binoche's mother, Leslie Caron, who -- being French and female -- can tell simply from the glances during dinner between Irons and Binoche, or rather their complete absence, what's going on. She warns Irons to knock it off, and he agrees, but, as he already knows, he can't.
Tragedy ensues. While Irons and Binoche are going after it in their usual gymnastic way in a bare hotel room, Graves enters by accident and, stunned, backs away and tumbles over the balcony railing to his death several floors below. Irons loses everything -- his son, his wife, his lover, his job. He winds up in a foreign land, gray haired, supposedly poor but living in an apartment that looks more comfortable, if not as exotic, as the hovel I inhabit.
This was directed by Louis Malle, who has done some splendid work, all of it sensitive to relatively minor interactional exchanges -- glances, silences, the reply that does not quite answer the question. The family is seated at their usually elaborate dinner and someone remarks to Graves that his life has been nearly perfect. He pauses and says with a smile that he wishes he were a little more passionate about things. His mother comments, "You must have gotten that lack of passion from me." "No," he says, "I think it was from Dad." The kid has no idea what passion his old man is capable of. Yes, dear old Dad is a human tea kettle with its lid flopping up and down and nobody but Juliette Binoche has the slightest clue.
It's flawlessly shot, directed, and acted, but the script is a bit hackneyed. And although it keeps our interest and is realistically based on the kinds of conflicts we all experience, the story is rather slender. Two people getting after it, who shouldn't. Sometimes you must deny the impulses your glands put you up to. What we wind up with is "Romeo and Juliette." The film can't be easily dismissed -- a tragedy whose end everyone can see coming except the two protagonists.