Directed by Michel Deville.
Adapted for a screenplay by Christopher Frank, Florence Delay, and Michel Deville with additional dialog by Christopher Frank, from Patricia Highsmith's novel "Deep Water."
Cinematography by Claude Lecomte.
Soundtrack - Concerto pour Clavecin, Music by Manuel de Falla, Conducted by Charles Dutoit, Disques ERATO
The film stars Isabelle Huppert (Coup de torchon) as Mélanie, Jean-Louis Trintignant (...And God Created Woman, Col cuore in gola, The Great Silence, The City of Lost Children) as Vic, Sandrine Kljajic as their daughter Marion. Éric Frey as Denis Miller, Christian Benedetti as Carlo Canelli, and Bruce Myers as Cameron.
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| Jean-Louis Trintignant as Vic |
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| Isabelle Huppert as Mélanie |
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| Sandrine Kljajic as Marion |
I have a confession, the only film based on a Patricia Highsmith novel that I liked so far up to this one is Purple Noon. since that film I just haven't liked other adaptations of her Ripley Character. For some reason or another Ripley just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe because he gets away with it.
But this film is not a Ripley.
This is a pretty simple story.
Vic is a successful old school French perfumer living on the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel right off the coast of France. He's married to Mélanie they have a daughter Marion. The family is well off, living in a spacious villa, and is socially active within the haute monde (high society) of the island. They give and attend parties. Mélanie loves to dance and gets off on intensely flirting with other men in front of Vic. Vic loves his pet snails. What could go wrong??? There is no joy in Jersey.
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| Mélanie's L'homme du jour |
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| Vic is not amused |
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| Her husband is in Mélanie's sights |
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| Mélanie completely exhausted from flirting |
The more Vic plays it cool and collected at these parties the more outrageous Mélanie gets. We get a lot of reaction shots between the two and between the party goers. There's obviously a slow fuse lit within Vic and you wonder WTF he is waiting for. He's a snail like his pets.
Me as a viewer assumes that something is haywire sexually between them. Normally you'd expect a guy in Vic's situation to react a bit more forcefully. Instead he's overly polite and acting nonchalant accepting it all up to a point. When he's finally had enough he takes the guy du jour aside and tells him that he's the one who is responsible for the unsolved murders on the island that has dominated the local news. This usually cools the guy's jets.
Mélanie accelerates things by bringing home some of the men she meets for dinner and also for after dinner drinks and dancing. Mélanie and her "friends" usually out last Vic who excuses himself and goes up to bed.
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It starts going Noirsville when the papers announce that they have caught the murderer. Vic is now the subject of ridicule from the various men on the Isle of Jersey that he threatened, so when next Mélanie engages a hotel lounge pianist as a piano teacher for Marion, Vic drowns him at a pool party when the rest of the guests have gone in for dinner.
Noirsville
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The film is like all Highsmith narratives, concerned with the psychology of it's characters. It's mind games. If that is your bag you'll love this. Also if you relate to high society or country club milieux you will love this. It's a refined thriller with a twisted end.
I like my noir down and dirty, with tragic-ly hip characters from the other side of the tracks accompanied with the atmospheric visuals that grab your attention. I like my Noirs with a twisted Style.
What keeps your interest here is the ratcheting up of the tension between Vic and Mélanie that's also got a kinky twist that you don't see coming.
For me it's a 7/10. It's definitely worth a watch but I probably won't need to watch it again because though it's beautifully shot, it didn't really hook me visually. Just look at the screencaps there's an overabundance of head and from the waist up shots.
It's a film, and a film should be more visually interesting, otherwise its a basically a filmed play. You really don't get any feel for the Isle of Jersey. It looks like any costal type location. The main impression you remember is the the leads and their relationship that precipitates what happens, so unless you are big fans of Trintignant and Huppert, it's more for completists of their work rather than a Visually Stylistic masterpiece. But it's just my preferences at play.
Great review.... Anything based on Highsmith is worth watching.
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