Director-cowriter Wagon creates an edgy, realistic film that stares infidelity in the face. It's hard-as-nails, but the honesty of its characters and situations helps make it startlingly touching as it examines Marie's behaviour--selfishness combined with frailty, needs blurred by desire, contentment intertwined with restlessness. The performances are very strong as well--this is very much an actor's film, as it all exists in the subtle twitch of a face and the microscopic interplay between the characters. Todd is the most difficult, as we never quite understand what makes Bill tick, and he persists in being slightly off-kilter, which makes him both fascinating and a little scary! It's lucky that the film is so well made, because barely a half hour into it we begin to suspect that it's going to end in one of those infuriating scenes of French ambiguity (no comment). But regardless of how it ends, the story touches so many nerves that it's definitely worth the journey.

adult themes and situations, language, nudity

9.Aug.01

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