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| Movie Review: Gabrielle Alternate Title: Les Miserables
Story: Want to watch the dissolution
of a marriage between two despicable characters? If that's what gets
you going then check out this claustrophobia art house film directed
by Patrice Chereau based on the short story, The
Return, by Joseph Conrad. The year seems to be around 1900 in Paris. M. Hervey and his wife Gabrielle,
have a loveless, lustless, upper class life surrounded by snobs, salon
types, pseudo-intellectuals, the bored and the boring. One day she suddenly
leaves a note saying she is leaving him and then, just as quickly,she
returns. The film is all about how he handles it and how she reacts
to him. In short order I hated them both and wished them the unhappiness
they so richly deserved. Director Chereau arbitrarily goes from color to black and white and
also throws in 3000 point type every now and then as exclamation points.
The acting was great but I could not wait to leave the theater. Acting: Both Isabelle Huppert and
Pascale Gregory were perfect in their respective roles.
Too bad the story could not hold my interest.
Predilection: none
Critters: 0
Food: Lamb, chicken, potatoes. Soundtrack: Over the top melodramatic.
Visual Art: The expansive mansion that this couple
inhabits was filled with blank walls, some sculpture and lots and lots
of narrow hallways.
Theater Audience: Fairly crowded but most of us ran
out of the theater to escape at the end.
Sappy Factor: 0
Quirky Meter: 0
Squirm Scale: The couple made me squirm.
Drift Factor: It is hard to drift in a subtitled film.
Predictability Level: I did not know what was to
happen, nor did I care.
Tissue Usage: 0
Oscar Worthy: No
Big Screen or Rental: Neither
Length: Long at 90 minutes.
LOBO HOWLS: 3
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