This is actually a well-made movie, but I suspect it will pass largely unnoticed.
The acting is uniformly good, the script, adapted from Émile Zola's first important novel, Thérèse Raquin, nicely done. Jessica Lange should get some sort of commendation for her performance of the older Mme Raquin once she has had her stroke and can only communicate with her eyes and facial expression. Though she is a hateful character in the novel, you can't help feeling sorry for her once she is trapped in her body, and abused by her daughter-in-law and her second husband.
The photography is also good, sometimes very beautiful. It captures both the countryside outside Paris, and the gloom of 19th-century Paris's crowded, narrow streets before Baron Haussmann created the wide boulevards we know and love today.
The problem here is that this is a uniformly gloomy story, and the movie doesn't change that any. It also moves too slowly. Granted, having read the novel several times I already knew the plot, but the movie did not hold me. I kept looking at my watch, wondering how much longer it would take to get to the grizzly, melodramatic end.
Fans of Ms. Lange should definitely see this movie for her performance. Oscar Isaac's Laurent is too "nice" for the bestial character in Zola's novel, but that may have been a director's or a producer's choice to make the movie more appealing to his fans and American audiences in general. Elizabeth Olsen is very convincing as Thérèse, but it's not an appealing role. Any sympathy we might feel for her early on is not developed, and quickly lost once she turns shrewish.
A fine production of a not particularly appealing novel.
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I watched this movie again last night, this time focusing on the question: why was this movie made?, or more specifically, what audience did the creators think it would appeal to? Though not as disagreeable as in the novel, the romantic couple are still very hard to sympathize with here, especially Laurent. There were a lot of very beautifully lit sex scenes with the two of them, however. He, in particular, was often shown bare-chested with a light that made his skin look beautiful, all rosy pink and flesh tones. Perhaps, then, this movie was made for women in their teens, 20s, and 30s, who fantasize about having sex with such a "pretty" man? (In the novel, Laurent is repeatedly described as bestial, which is not the case here.) Is this meant to appeal to readers of Harlequin romances?
The acting is uniformly good, the script, adapted from Émile Zola's first important novel, Thérèse Raquin, nicely done. Jessica Lange should get some sort of commendation for her performance of the older Mme Raquin once she has had her stroke and can only communicate with her eyes and facial expression. Though she is a hateful character in the novel, you can't help feeling sorry for her once she is trapped in her body, and abused by her daughter-in-law and her second husband.
The photography is also good, sometimes very beautiful. It captures both the countryside outside Paris, and the gloom of 19th-century Paris's crowded, narrow streets before Baron Haussmann created the wide boulevards we know and love today.
The problem here is that this is a uniformly gloomy story, and the movie doesn't change that any. It also moves too slowly. Granted, having read the novel several times I already knew the plot, but the movie did not hold me. I kept looking at my watch, wondering how much longer it would take to get to the grizzly, melodramatic end.
Fans of Ms. Lange should definitely see this movie for her performance. Oscar Isaac's Laurent is too "nice" for the bestial character in Zola's novel, but that may have been a director's or a producer's choice to make the movie more appealing to his fans and American audiences in general. Elizabeth Olsen is very convincing as Thérèse, but it's not an appealing role. Any sympathy we might feel for her early on is not developed, and quickly lost once she turns shrewish.
A fine production of a not particularly appealing novel.
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I watched this movie again last night, this time focusing on the question: why was this movie made?, or more specifically, what audience did the creators think it would appeal to? Though not as disagreeable as in the novel, the romantic couple are still very hard to sympathize with here, especially Laurent. There were a lot of very beautifully lit sex scenes with the two of them, however. He, in particular, was often shown bare-chested with a light that made his skin look beautiful, all rosy pink and flesh tones. Perhaps, then, this movie was made for women in their teens, 20s, and 30s, who fantasize about having sex with such a "pretty" man? (In the novel, Laurent is repeatedly described as bestial, which is not the case here.) Is this meant to appeal to readers of Harlequin romances?