Patrice Chereau's adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novella The Return is a gripping chamber piece in which a bourgeois man's stable, comfortable life is unexpectedly shattered. The time is turn-of-the-century France. Jean and his wife Gabrielle are a well-to-do couple who spend much of their time throwing lavish dinner parties.One day however, Jean discovers a letter left behind by Gabrielle, in which she confesses to Jean that she has been sleeping with another man and is leaving him for good. Devastated, Jean is understandably shocked again when Gabrielle returns home just a few hours later. Jean's pride mixes with jealousy, anger and bitterness, and the once happy couple begins to realize just how different they actually are, sparking a final confrontation that will decide their fate once and for all.
Hell is other people in this Conrad adaptation, by way of Jean-Paul Sartre. Veteran theatrical director Patrice Chereau, as per usual, can't help but throw in some fl... more >
Hell is other people in this Conrad adaptation, by way of Jean-Paul Sartre. Veteran theatrical director Patrice Chereau, as per usual, can't help but throw in some flashy visual effects(dates, literary headings and even speech rendered on to the screen) to remind us we are watching “cinema”, but the performances are compelling enough to make this the most effective of Chereau's films to arrive in Britain to date. This is almost certainly due to the theatrical nature of the plotting and performances, and most particularly the outstanding turn by Isabelle Huppert in the title role, as a dissatisfied wife who abruptly leaves her husband with an explanatory letter only to come back just as he is taking in the news. Their young maid, played by Claudia Coli,watches over proceedings and is enigmatic enough to make you wish she had more screen time. The original novella was told from the husbands point of view, but here it is the characters of the wife and the young maid that
are most intriguing, sometimes to the extent that the frustration of fusty Pascal Greggory, complete with big grey beard and much chomped on cigar, is not particularly well communicated. Chereaus' revisionist treatment of the material works well enough for the most part but undermines the power of the conclusion where we are supposed to empathise with the husband as he finally takes a moral stand. < less
