... Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) and Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) hadn't been happily (even boringly) married when they had that chance meeting in 'Brief Encouter' but instead full of angst because 1) his wife was terminally ill and they had mutually agreed that she would take her own life and 2) her husband had regressed to a stage one up from complete vegetable following an accident in which their young daughter died. That, my friends, is the premise for the unlikely meeting between Yves Montand and Romy Schneider who meet on and off throughout one single night then separate. In his wisdom Costa-Gavros has taken one of the most beautiful women in the world and asked her to play dowdy and a man who is charm personified and asked him to play nerd. Somehow it works. Of COURSE it does. We're talking Montand and Schneider here so what's not to work. On the other hand the odds against the stranger whose shopping he knocks to the ground whilst alighting from a taxi being a woman as angst-ridden as himself have to be in the high Impossibles-To-One and it might be interesting to see if Romain Gary made a better fist of it in his novel from which the film is adapted. Montand and Gavros had a history, of course; Gavros got his first break as a director when both Montand and his wife Simone Signoret agreed to star in Compartiment tuers which may not have been green-lighted otherwise and Montand turned in one of his all-time best performances (and that's saying something) in L'Aveu with Gavros on bullhorn so maybe he figured why not. It is indisputable that Montand and Schneider were far, far better in Sautet's Cesar et Rosalie where she was allowed to be not just an actress (and she was a very fine one) but a BEAUTIFUL actress and he was allowed to display not just his considerable acting prowess but also his singular charm and charisma. Here, as if the two guilt-laden protagonists weren't enough we get an eccentric animal trainer, a dog dancing with a monkey (symbolic? You tell me) and Montand 'communicating' with Schneider's brain-impaired husband via gibberish. Yeah, THAT's what it is, a Doris Day movie. Still what we can't get away from is that this is a movie starring Montand and Schneider and that makes it worthwhile. Just.
Review of Womanlight
