Leaving sees Kristin Scott Thomas once again in a French-language production, following on from her powerful performance in I’ve Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, 2008), which was released here in October 2009. She doesn’t disappoint, and while her character, Suzanne — a woman fighting the suffocating boredom imposed by her upper middle class life — hasn’t the same edginess of Juliette Fontaine, the unrepentant murderer of her own child from I’ve Loved You So Long, it is for the most part a marvelously nuanced interpretation of a Lady Chatterley-like character.
Leaving tells the story of Suzanne, a physiotherapist married to a doctor in a stable if not terribly passionate relationship. They have two children, both going through a rather aggressive adolescence. Suzanne wants to get back to work, and her husband Samuel (Yvan Attal) has spent a considerable sum of money to set up a consulting room for her in their spacious home. The worker on the project is Ivan (Sergi Lopez, Capitan Vidal from Pan’s Labyrinth), a Spaniard working illegally in France who has a blue-collar directness and easy manner that contrasts vividly against Samuel’s formal manner. The charm of the set up is that while the husband is far from being anyone’s romantic fantasy, he is considerate and kind. He does, however, want value for money.
Thomas creates in Suzanne a kind, rather naive character who has the best of intentions and an almost total ignorance of the harsh world outside her privileged existence. In discovering passion, she steps outside the rules that have always protected her. That she has done wrong is never in doubt. Attal gives her able support as Samuel, for while we might not find his demand that his conjugal rights be respected wholly sympathetic, he does not forfeit our acknowledgement that he has a case to make. Suzanne has stepped outside the rules, but although she is the film’s romantic heroine, our indulgence for her actions is never a forgone conclusion.
Photo courtesy of iFilm
For most of the film, Leaving has much to admire as an interpretation of an age-old story of how passion can take hold of a life and destroy it.
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