This is yet another take on Chabrol's ongoing exploration of French suburbia and on balance it's no better or worse than most of his others. From the outset - Philippe Tardieu returns home to find his mother and sisters watching a news report involving the mysterious and possibly tragic disappearance of a young girl and turns the TV off - it's obvious that Philippe (Benoit Magimal) is destined to wind up on the TV himself having descended from an initially healthy to an ultimately unhealthy state of mind so that all we need now is a catalyst. Chabrol makes us wait and doesn't introduce Senta (Laura Smet) until about 30 minutes into the movie. From that point it's a case of watching as Senta eats into Philippe's brain the way maggots eat into a cadaver for, to all intents and purposes Philippe is a dead man from his first encounter with Senta. Chabrol likes to take his time and dallies over a situation involving Philippe's widowed mother Christine (Aurore Clement) and a possible replacement Gerard Courtois (Bernard Le Coq). Chabrol clearly sees Le Coq as 'heavy' material; in his last film Fleur du Mal Le Coq had a much bigger part as a much bigger villain and Suzanne Flon suffers a similar fate segueing from a main supporting role in Fleur to little more than a cameo here. Benoit Magimal is the kind of French actor I've never been able to warm to, a kind of Vincent Cassell-lite, seething with contained violence, trying for 'cool' and emerging as 'sullen' though in fairness Magimal here gets nearer to playing an essentially 'nice' guy than Cassell managed in L'Appartement. Laura Smet is excellent as the not-quite beautiful but very sensuous with it Senta as well she may be given her pedigree - the daughter of the great Nathalie Baye and, somewhat improbably, Johnny Hallyday. Overall it's a pleasant if not gripping enough entry, one which I've now seen twice and will possibly see again.
Review of The Bridesmaid
