REVIEW: Thérèse Desqueyroux (2013)

In 1954, film critic François Truffaut wrote an article in “Cahiers du cinema” called "Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français” in which he complained of the state of French cinema. According to him, French cinema was overrun with well-mannered literary adaptations, produced by hack directors. Cinema was being made subservient to the written word. A few years later, Truffaut and a collection of other young filmmakers would gleefully bring film language back to prominence and made film history. However, in later years, Truffaut would make his own sober literary adaptations and French cinema in general, in the 1980s and 1990s particularly, began to embrace a kind of heritage cinema quite like the kind that Truffaut had originally derided. And now we have the late Claude Miller’s (who incidentally was Truffaut’s production manager on a number of his films) final film, Thérèse Desqueyroux, an adaptation of a novel by François Mauriac.

Audrey Tautou plays Thérèse Desqueyroux, an independently minded woman in 1920s France, who has just married Bernard Desqueyroux (Gilles Lellouche) in what was to all intents and purposes an arranged marriage between two rich families. However, it isn’t long before Thérèse realizes that she is unhappy with the match and with her new life. She comes to feel cloistered by a variety of social pressures and decides to find a way out.

Claude Miller tells this story very soberly, slowly unravelling the various elements of the plot with attention and, often times, a graceful subtlety. In its mannered way, the film does not feel like a collection of plot mechanisms and despite its literary origins, Miller does rely on film language to a large degree. A lot is said by silence and Thérèse is a quiet character, never entirely saying what she means, often because she doesn’t know herself. Tautou and co-writers Miller and Natalie Carter keep her just out of reach, slightly unknowable. Miller is obviously interested the wider picture, resistant to making a simplistic drama in which the audience’s sympathies are guided one way or the other. He does not make a villain out of Thérèse, nor does he simplify her story into a bald good vs. bad. Why exactly Thérèse does the things that she does is never fully explained, but it is understandable and this is Miller’s greatest achievement, conveying the complexity of the character without making her entirely beyond comprehension.

Other than this, the film’s main accomplishment is the fluidity of its storyline. It is increasingly rare for a film to tell a story well, especially when you consider how many films are over-complicated and full of plot holes. Thérèse Desqueyroux unravels very well, with scenes well placed and subplots offering interesting contrasts and commentary on the main storyline. The development of the character of Thérèse moves logically and clearly, the lead-up to her crime allowing the act itself to feel perfectly inevitable. There are no sudden tonal shifts and nothing seems out of place. Potentially histrionic scenes are avoided - the discovery of Thérèse’s crime kept muted and plausible rather than shocking and surprising. In keeping with the film’s classical structure, the film is beautifully shot, the camera moving gracefully, and without causing distraction, when it needs to. It captures the beauty of its setting and has a real sense of place and the actors are well blocked. Though listing all of these things can’t help but sound ironic, it does feel like a rare gift to see a film that is so classically made.

As a result, there doesn’t seem to be much else to say about the film. It tells its story with tact and confidence, avoiding simplification and shock tactics, which would only insult both the characters and the audience. It’s a simple, well-told story with nice images and good performances. Nothing spectacular or particularly fascinating, but well made and quite interesting.