In 19th century France, Therese is sent to live with her aunt and her cousin, sickly mummy's boy Camille. On reaching adulthood, her aunt marries Therese off to Camille and they move to Paris. There, Camille meets childhood friend Laurent who embarks on a passionate and forbidden affair with Therese which culminates in them wishing to be rid of Camille.
If Therese had only had TV, she would have watched enough to know that this sort of thing never ends well. Emile Zola's 1867 novel Therese Raquin, retitled here, may have suffered in that characters who should be unsympathetic turn out to be quite likable and rather sad. Therese (Elizabeth Olsen) trapped into a life she doesn't like by a domineering aunt, understandably turns to an affair with wild abandon as it brings her joys she has never known. Tom Felton, not someone whose work as a child actor has appealed to me, is turning out to be quite good as an adult: he makes Camille into someone whose failings are not his fault (although I think he could have gone for a better haircut. I digress). Jessica Lange, on the basis of this film, is not ageing particularly attractively, but has become an actress of a stature one would not have expected from the 1976 King Kong: her overbearing mother/aunt, while not sympathetic to start off with, suffers terribly in more ways than one, and you end up feeling sorry for her. Only Laurent (Oscar Isaac) doesn't seem to have much in the way of redeeming qualities other than being a) hot and b) a good painter. I suspect that this may not be what Zola intended.
This film is lushly photographed, and contains good supporting performances from assorted unexpected British actors.
I have to finish with a "but" - but it's not much fun, not that tragedies ever are. It's all a bit glum and - importantly - not very uplifting (Les Miserables was glum, but left you feeling that there is something redemptive in human potential - that's not the case here, I'm afraid). So this is good, of its sort, but I can't say I came out of it feeling particularly enriched by it.
If Therese had only had TV, she would have watched enough to know that this sort of thing never ends well. Emile Zola's 1867 novel Therese Raquin, retitled here, may have suffered in that characters who should be unsympathetic turn out to be quite likable and rather sad. Therese (Elizabeth Olsen) trapped into a life she doesn't like by a domineering aunt, understandably turns to an affair with wild abandon as it brings her joys she has never known. Tom Felton, not someone whose work as a child actor has appealed to me, is turning out to be quite good as an adult: he makes Camille into someone whose failings are not his fault (although I think he could have gone for a better haircut. I digress). Jessica Lange, on the basis of this film, is not ageing particularly attractively, but has become an actress of a stature one would not have expected from the 1976 King Kong: her overbearing mother/aunt, while not sympathetic to start off with, suffers terribly in more ways than one, and you end up feeling sorry for her. Only Laurent (Oscar Isaac) doesn't seem to have much in the way of redeeming qualities other than being a) hot and b) a good painter. I suspect that this may not be what Zola intended.
This film is lushly photographed, and contains good supporting performances from assorted unexpected British actors.
I have to finish with a "but" - but it's not much fun, not that tragedies ever are. It's all a bit glum and - importantly - not very uplifting (Les Miserables was glum, but left you feeling that there is something redemptive in human potential - that's not the case here, I'm afraid). So this is good, of its sort, but I can't say I came out of it feeling particularly enriched by it.