From one gilded age to another: 78-year-old Claude Chabrol’s latest sexual triangle retouches the crime of the last century, or at least the sordid tabloid sensation of 1906: the murder of prolific Beaux Arts architect Stanford White (of Washington Square Arch fame) by a volatile Pittsburgh industrial heir whose wife, model/chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit, was once one of White’s many mistresses. Is the modernization plausible? Sadly, yes.

Here the Stanford White figure is award-winning literary lion Charles Saint-Denis (François Berléand). Now in his late fifties, Charles ventures from his secluded concrete-and-glass fortress he shares with his wife of 25 years for a rare promotional book tour in nearby Lyon, which includes a deadly banal television interview where the host has only a passing knowledge of his guest. At a reception afterwards, Charles spots the channel’s perky weather girl (to call her a meteorologist would be patronizing) holding court at the bar—legs crossed, smoking a cigarette, ignoring the attention of a guy her own age.

But try as Gabrielle might to appear mature for her age, no one in the film (except for her single mother, a bookseller with a crush on Saint-Denis) sees her other than a malleable little girl. Her chirpy and vacuous banter, whether delivering the weather or hosting her own talk show, supports this image. As Gabrielle, Ludivine Sagnier looks even younger here than she did in Swimming Pool. A petite blonde with soft features, she resembles a living Barbie doll with her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Even her character’s name, Gabrielle Aurora Snow, sounds like fairy tale royalty.

Although Gabrielle meets Charles’s gaze, and has no hesitation in accompanying him to his hideaway, she’s like a teenager in love, putting her life on hold and waiting for Charles to call. Somewhat self-aware, she knows she has an immediate appeal to men—as soon as she meets rich-boy-about-town Paul, he persistently pursues her. At the same time, she allows others to make up her mind for her. She thinks she’s calling the shots, when she’s really giving in to someone’s plans.

Having a drink among friends in a private club, Charles observes that “Sexuality is still the great mystery.” This isn’t just a blanket explanation for Gabrielle’s behavior or her attraction to Charles, who’s at least 30 years older than she. And neither is her mother’s pat analysis that her daughter may be drawn to Charles as a father figure. All of the characters are walking contradictions, each pulling and pushing away the viewer. Part of the film’s tension derives from what the audience clearly sees and what Gabrielle doesn’t; her hopefulness gets in the way of her perception.

But Gabrielle does realize that she has a choice—either a married lover or the handsome but unhinged man/child Paul, or, the self-made intelligentsia vs. the insular, stolid old-money set, both cliques highly incestuous. (A raised eyebrow or a glance conveys more meaning than the suggestive dialogue.) With his foppish blond-highlighted hair and peacock strut, Benoît Magimel is almost unrecognizable as the overgrown, petulant spoiled boy with violent tendencies—his handler walks only a few feet behind him, lest Paul’s temper should get the better of him.

And expect the temperature to plunge upon the entrance of Paul’s mother, Genevieve (Caroline Silhol), the only woman who makes a Chanel suit seem like a straightjacket. With her rigidity and single-mindedness, she joins the pantheon of maternal monsters. Her conservatively dressed daughters could be time travelers from any era from the last 50 years.

It’s a bit simplistic to refer to Chabrol as the French Hitchcock. Both draw upon the same type of material, but Chabrol is all about withholding, withholding key points of the story or not giving into the viewer’s craving for easy relief. The omission of a scene might drive some viewers crazy, but by circumventing exactly what goes on behind closed doors between Charles and Gabrielle, the imagination runs wild, which might reveal more about the viewer than Chabrol. Kent Turner
August 15, 2008