Original title: “Thérèse Desqueyroux”
France – Drama – Year: 2012 – Running time: 110 mins
Audience feedback: Rating: 
(3.41 from 27 votes)
- ‘Excellent’: 5 votes
- ‘Very Good’: 9 votes
- ‘Good’: 6 votes
- ‘Satisfactory’: 6 votes
- ‘Poor’: 1 vote
Another adaptation of François Mauriac’s 1927 novel, the previous one being in 1962, Miller’s last film (he died recently, aged 70) stars Audrey Tautou as the daughter of a wealthy pinery owner and radical-socialist politician, struggling to break free from social pressures. She thinks, reads and smokes too much in the tradition of feisty heroines but still retains a keen appreciation of her family’s riches and social standing and sees how advantageous it would be to marry the dull, wealthy landowner, Bernard Desqueyroux.
Miller’s film is a work of emotional reserve, eschewing psychological explanation in favor of unadorned observation – of human behavior as well as nature and the still lifes of the domestic world.
Sheri Linden, LA Times
Director: Claude Miller
A Secret (2007) / Alias Betty (2001) / Garde à vue (1981)
Film notes (Bob Foale)
Audience feedback
Discussion
Further reading:
Telegraph films (David Gritten)
Guardian Film (Peter Bradshaw)
Theatrical Trailer: