Adapted for the screen from Francois Mauriac’s novel of the same name, Therese Desqueyroux is a complex tale about love and betrayal, set in 1927, in the provincial region of Landes near Bordeaux. It was a time when marriages were arranged to shore up land deals and women went along with the arrangements to shore up their futures. Claude Miller’s film creates a disquieting atmosphere between his two main characters, Therese (Audrey Tatou – Amelie/ The Da Vinci Code) and her husband Bernard (Gilles Lellouche – Point Blank/ Mesrine). Why disquieting? Maybe it is in the casting, as we know Tatou from previous roles where butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and yet here she portrays a complex woman who is difficult to fathom; a woman who is prepared to resort to extreme measures.

In an interview with Tatou, she said of her character, “Therese is a cerebral person. She doesn’t talk much. No-one ever opens up in that family”. For this is the crux of this story; living in a huge house, stuck in relationships with people who are too afraid to speak out makes for a pretty suffocating existence. Bernard’s provincial family are supervised by his mother Madame Desqueyroux (Catherine Arditi - known for her TV roles in France) and his Aunt Clara (Isabelle Sadoyan - Three Colours Blue), who create the atmosphere of an emotional prison where the shackles are manufactured by local convention and tradition. The only breath of fresh air for Therese is her sister-in-law Anne (Anais Demoustier - Elles), who is in love with Jean (Stanley Webber – known for his TV roles in France), whom the family don’t approve of. With her husband’s encouragement, Therese steps in to sort out the relationship, thus succumbing to the wishes of the family and putting an end to the passionate, illicit love affair.

We are constantly being reminded how the subjugation of women was an on-going problem and for Therese, a woman whose avant-garde ideas were out of sync with the times, the problem was that she was caught up in a loveless marriage from which she desperately wanted to escape. The tragedy in this case is Bernard, who is portrayed as nice enough and yet incapable of revealing his true emotions. Is it this lack of passion that drives Therese to commit such a ghastly act? In an interview with Miller, he once admitted that, “niceness bores me…” Perhaps this film is testament to his feelings. Sadly, this was the last film the director was to make; he died in April last year.

// SALT

Previewed at Dendy Newtown Cinemas on Wednesday, 27 March 2013