Suite Francaise (15.)
Directed by Saul Dibb.
Starring Michelle Williams, Matthias Schoenaerts, Kristen Scott Thomas, Sam Riley, Margot Robbie,and Alexandra Maria Lara. 107 mins.
American actor Michelle Williams is talented but only seems to want to use that talent to play women in doomed, unhappy relationships. Her love unravelled in Blue Valentine, Take This Waltz, My Week with Marilyn and now she is condemned to a wet blanket martyrdom in this tale of a town under Nazi occupation. Her Lucille has it rough: married off to a man she barely knew, she is now stuck at home with her wicked witch step mother (Scott Thomas) who makes her go out and collect rent from her various tenants and won't let her play the piano.
So when the Nazis march in, it is just another hindrance in her already grim life. The Nazis billet an officer in each of the villagers’ homes, and they get Bruno (Schoenaerts), who is the very worst kind of Nazi – the one that thinks he's nice. Despite the overbearing command of the mother-in-law that she have nothing to do with the Nazis, isolated Lucille can't help but be drawn to his sensitivity. Can you see where they are going with this?
Director Dibb gave a distinctive edge to his costume drama The Duchess but this is more soppy love drama. Despite the best efforts of a good cast it feels like stodgy teatime drama. You can see the dramatic traps doors being carefully laid out for and just wait for them to spring open and the characters to stumble into them.
This is France under the Nazis so obviously the first thing the cast has to do is perfect their English accents to properly play provincial French villagers, even French actor Lambert Wilson. This is a genteel, terribly British version of life during wartime: a kind of Midsomer Nazi Occupation. The Germans are a frightful lot and behave abominably while the French are hardly any better – collaborating, colluding, putting out, conniving, gossiping, back stabbing, score settling and generally looking out for number une. Such an approach rather blunts the dramatic impact but having sat through any number of punishing, graphic depicting of the deprivations of war, I was grateful for being let off lightly just this once.
Suite Francaise (15.)
Directed by Saul Dibb.
Starring Michelle Williams, Matthias Schoenaerts, Kristen Scott Thomas, Sam Riley, Margot Robbie,and Alexandra Maria Lara. 107 mins.
American actor Michelle Williams is talented but only seems to want to use that talent to play women in doomed, unhappy relationships. Her love unravelled in Blue Valentine, Take This Waltz, My Week with Marilyn and now she is condemned to a wet blanket martyrdom in this tale of a town under Nazi occupation. Her Lucille has it rough: married off to a man she barely knew, she is now stuck at home with her wicked witch step mother (Scott Thomas) who makes her go out and collect rent from her various tenants and won't let her play the piano.
So when the Nazis march in, it is just another hindrance in her already grim life. The Nazis billet an officer in each of the villagers’ homes, and they get Bruno (Schoenaerts), who is the very worst kind of Nazi – the one that thinks he's nice. Despite the overbearing command of the mother-in-law that she have nothing to do with the Nazis, isolated Lucille can't help but be drawn to his sensitivity. Can you see where they are going with this?
Director Dibb gave a distinctive edge to his costume drama The Duchess but this is more soppy love drama. Despite the best efforts of a good cast it feels like stodgy teatime drama. You can see the dramatic traps doors being carefully laid out for and just wait for them to spring open and the characters to stumble into them.
This is France under the Nazis so obviously the first thing the cast has to do is perfect their English accents to properly play provincial French villagers, even French actor Lambert Wilson. This is a genteel, terribly British version of life during wartime: a kind of Midsomer Nazi Occupation. The Germans are a frightful lot and behave abominably while the French are hardly any better – collaborating, colluding, putting out, conniving, gossiping, back stabbing, score settling and generally looking out for number une. Such an approach rather blunts the dramatic impact but having sat through any number of punishing, graphic depicting of the deprivations of war, I was grateful for being let off lightly just this once.
