Victor de Richemont is a scion of a wealthy Paris family and a budding writer, meaning he may be at the beginning of a brilliant literary career or about to become a one-book wonder. He takes up with Sarah Adelman, a brilliant and charismatic doctorate student in literature. She becomes a de facto editor-cowriter of his first unpublished novel and is instrumental in turning it into a well structured work that puts Victor in the French literary map. They begin a relationship that lasts 45 years in which she cowrites in various ways most of his works. Perhaps in contrast with his own, Victor is fascinated by Sara's Jewish family and culture, although with literary exploitation in mind.
With a subsequent work Victor attains French literary Parnassus winning the coveted Prix Goncourt. All the while, Sarah's contributions to his works are studiously ignored by Victor and Sarah, a situation that endures until his death and beyond. The tale is at times told as a comedy, which does not always work; Victor's and Sarah's families are clichés. There are some pretentiousness and echoes of Truffaut's Amour Fou movies specially Jules and Jim.
There are some substantial negatives about women. Victor's mother is an addled-brain alcoholic and Sara's mother a mute witness to the intellectual brilliancy of her husband. I find repulsive the idea of an accomplished, educated woman like Sarah sacrificing her accomplishments and even her memory for a disloyal, narcissistic, self-pitying manipulative man that took lifelong unashamed advantage of her. In the same year 2017 another movie was made, Björn Runge's The Wife with almost the same subject and some coincidences; the words with which Sara and The Wife threaten an inquisitive journalist are almost the same. I don't believe the movie attains entirely its objectives but it deserves a watch, perhaps more so than the much more staid and conventional The Wife.
With a subsequent work Victor attains French literary Parnassus winning the coveted Prix Goncourt. All the while, Sarah's contributions to his works are studiously ignored by Victor and Sarah, a situation that endures until his death and beyond. The tale is at times told as a comedy, which does not always work; Victor's and Sarah's families are clichés. There are some pretentiousness and echoes of Truffaut's Amour Fou movies specially Jules and Jim.
There are some substantial negatives about women. Victor's mother is an addled-brain alcoholic and Sara's mother a mute witness to the intellectual brilliancy of her husband. I find repulsive the idea of an accomplished, educated woman like Sarah sacrificing her accomplishments and even her memory for a disloyal, narcissistic, self-pitying manipulative man that took lifelong unashamed advantage of her. In the same year 2017 another movie was made, Björn Runge's The Wife with almost the same subject and some coincidences; the words with which Sara and The Wife threaten an inquisitive journalist are almost the same. I don't believe the movie attains entirely its objectives but it deserves a watch, perhaps more so than the much more staid and conventional The Wife.