Movie Review: Claude Miller’s ‘Thérèse’

Audrey Tautou’s icy detachment perfectly suits this Desqueyroux. She is a tragic enigma, jealously guarding her conflicting thoughts and emotions from everyone around her.
Movie Review: Claude Miller’s ‘Thérèse’
Audrey Tautou as Thérèse in the dramatic film set in 1920’s provincial France “Thérèse.” (Courtesy of MPI media group)
8/21/2013
Updated:
8/21/2013

Thérèse Desqueyroux is not much of a homemaker. She has servants for that sort of thing. She is hardly mother of the year either. She keeps up appearances as a dutiful wife, but she has no love and little respect for her husband. 

Yet, embracing the woman of privilege as a feminist icon or a victim of bourgeoisie society is a tricky business. The infamous protagonist of François Mauriac’s most celebrated novel will confound audiences again in the late Claude Miller’s final film, “Thérèse.”

At first, the marriage of Thérèse Larroque and Bernard Desqueyroux makes perfect sense, because of their pines. It is a way to combine the wooded estates of the two land-holding families. Despite his wealth, her father is something of a left-winger, which may have contributed to her contrary nature. 

You will not find any of that in the rigidly conventional Desqueyroux family. Alas, Bernard is a better hunter than a husband, but his newlywed wife seems even less interested in their domestic life together.

It turns out that Thérèse’s childhood best friend and now sister-in-law has a more idealistic and melodramatic approach to love. She has fallen for Jean Azevedo, the son of a wealthy local Jewish merchant. Obviously, he is quite unacceptable to a family concerned about upholding their social standing. 

It falls to the new Madame Desqueyroux to deal with this unwanted suitor, who turns out to be considerably less serious about her sister-in-law than she is about him. However, he awakens yearnings in Thérèse that only intensify her resentment of her uncouth husband. 

A former protégé of Truffaut, Miller was a master of cinematic ambiguity, and Thérèse Desqueyroux is a fitting character to grace his cinematic au revoir. When she attempts to murder Bernard by manipulating his prescribed arsenic drops, her motivations are not entirely clear. More boorish than brutish in Miller’s adaptation, he is no longer the abusive savage of Mauriac’s novel, but a rather sympathetic fool. 

Clearly, the constraints of polite society rankle Mme. Desqueyroux, but they will remain regardless of her husband’s fate. We have a clear sense that the Imp of the Perverse initially spurred her rash behavior, yet she continues her course of action in a coldly calculated manner.

Audrey Tautou’s icy detachment perfectly suits this Desqueyroux. She is a tragic enigma, jealously guarding her conflicting thoughts and emotions from everyone around her. 

In a bizarre case of dramatic jujitsu, Gilles Lellouche nearly steals the picture as Bernard Desqueyroux, who does his duty and keeps a stiff upper lip, because that is what gentlemen do. His final scenes with Tautou have a finely wrought air of melancholy that come to define the film overall.

Perhaps Mauriac might have taken issue with Miller’s choices, but his “Thérèse” is a very good film. It might appear to be a conventional period piece on the surface (especially without the original flashback structure), but its razor-sharp portrayal of the dark complexities of human nature distinguishes it from the field. 

Claude Miller’s ‘Thérèse’
Director: Claude MillerCast: Audrey Tautou, Gilles Lellouche, Anaïs Demoustier
Running Time: 1 hour. 40 minutes
Language: French with English subtitles

3.5 stars

Joe Bendel writes about independent film and lives in New York. To read his most recent articles, please visit http://jbspins.blogspot.com

Joe Bendel writes about independent film and lives in New York. To read his most recent articles, visit JBSpins.blogspot.com
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