Thérèse Desqueyroux (2012)
Directed by Claude Miller

Film Review

When Claude Miller died on 4th April 2012 he had recently completed work on what was to be his last film, an ambitious adaptation of François Mauriac's classic 1927 novel Thérèse Desqueyroux.  Miller had long harboured a desire to make the film, which, with its morally ambiguous heroine and darkly oppressive mood, fits neatly into his oeuvre and makes an effective bookend to a remarkable body of work.  Throughout the making of the film, Miller was receiving treatment for the cancer illness that would ultimately claim his life, so it was no mean feat that he was able to end his career with such a stylish and polished production, imbuing it with those qualities that make his cinema so distinctive and memorable - a passion for character, a fascination with the darker side of human nature and an unqualified love for life.

The heroine of Mauriac's novel, a free-spirited young woman who allows herself to become immured in a sterile marriage and is driven to try to murder her husband, is clearly one whom Miller could easily identify with.  This is the archetype that predominates in his oeuvre - strong teenage girls or young women who are impelled to rebel against a social milieu that stifles their urge to live as they would like.  Like Catherine in Mortelle randonnée (1983), Charlotte in L'Effrontée (1985) and Janine in La Petite voleuse (1988) (to name just three), Thérèse Desqueyroux is just another wild child who wants to be set free, this time to revel in the delights of the Jazz Age.  Visibly, Thérèse is the most tragic of Miller's heroine's, as she exists in an era in which she can never be truly free, such are the inviolable limitations imposed by bourgeois society on married women in the 1920s.

Audrey Tautou is perfectly chosen to play the fragile but strong-willed Thérèse and, under Miller's astute eye, she delivers what is probably her most riveting screen performance to date.  Thérèse is not a character that any audience can readily identify with.  It is far easier to sympathise with her harmless husband, skilfully interpreted by Gilles Lellouche, an actor who has proven he has a knack for playing flawed but intensely humane characters.  Thérèse, by contrast, is egoistical, scheming and potentially a murderess.  Whereas her husband is more than willing to forgive her for trying to kill him, she finds it virtually impossible to forgive him for marrying her.  Tautou is at her best when she is filmed in silent introspection.  It is then that we are able to see the tragic soul beneath the implacable surface, the sad child whose dreams of happiness are destined to be constantly thwarted and who must grow to accept the slow waning of her life force as her hopes fizzle out and die.  The dialogue takes away more than it adds and there are times when you can't help but think how much more powerful the film would be if it had been entirely silent.

And this reveals the fundamental weakness with the film: an overwritten, too literary script.  Oddly (given his penchant for stylisation), Miller chose to dispense with the flashback structure and other modernist devices of Mauriac's original novel (which the author claimed he adopted after seeing them used in silent films) and instead opted for a strictly linear narrative.  The more subversive elements of Mauriac's novel (such as the overtly homoerotic nature of Thérèse's relationship with her friend Anne) are downplayed or else omitted altogether, to the detriment of the authenticity of the principal characters.  Whilst it is true that Miller's film retains the grimly oppressive feel of the novel and its unsettling ambiguity, it is disappointing to find that it lacks its psychological depth and narrative flair, whilst the film's more dramatic and moving scenes are weighed down by overly demonstrative dialogue.  Had the screenwriting been up to the level of Miller's mise-en-scène and the quality of the acting, this could well have been the director's finest film.

Of course it is impossible to review this film without making comparison with an earlier adaptation of Mauriac's novel by Georges Franju, Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962), released almost exactly half a century earlier.  Considered Franju's masterpiece, this film brings Mauriac's proto-feminist story up-to-date but is otherwise faithful to the source novel and is distinguished by a remarkable central performance from Emmanuelle Riva, with Philippe Noiret equally superb as the despised husband.  Franju's understated monochrome film may not be as cinematographically grand as Miller's but it has a subtlety and intensity that make it a more rewarding viewer experience.  The stark emptiness of Thérèse's life is conveyed much more vividly by Franju and the motives that drive her to attempt murder are more convincingly spelled out.  Miller's film, however, appears shallow and overly ambiguous, and it doesn't quite get to grips with one of the most complex characters in modern French literature.  That said, no one would deny that it is a sumptuous piece of cinema, beautifully photographed and exquisitely performed by two of France's finest actors - a more than adequate conclusion to an exceptional career.

Film Synopsis

France in the late 1920s.  Thérèse is coerced into a marriage with her neighbour, Bernard Desqueyroux, who owns a large rural estate in the Landes region of France.  Whilst Thérèse is at first fascinated by her husband, a likeable, free-thinking man, she soon grows bored with her life in the country.  She longs to escape to the city and the distractions it offers.  One day, Bernard is poisoned by arsenic and Thérèse is arrested for attempted murder.  To avoid a scandal, Bernard's family has no choice but to come to her aid...