Director Catherine Corsini doesn't pull any punch depicting a love triangle of sort in Partir. Suzanne is a typical bourgeois wife of Samuel, a well-connected doctor. Children, big house, steady comfort, Suzanne has everything she could want, except passion. One day, she meets Ivan who make ends-meet working odd jobs and something clicks.

This very simple, very classic story is made worthwhile for several reasons. The main one being Kristin Scott Thomas delivering yet again a masterful performance. The role is tailor- made for this actress who knows how to subtly let us share the confused state of mind her character is in. Sergi Lopez and Yvan Attal are also good, although their roles are understandably much less challenging.

Where the screenplay shines is by not spoon-feeding us with justifications or condemnations for the characters. Suzanne's husband does seem somewhat boring, but he's not some evil one-dimensional character. And her new romantic interest Yvan is not an adventurous "alpha male". In fact, although Yvan does represent the freedom Suzanne never had thanks to his bohemian lifestyle, he seems like a somewhat vulnerable man and not terribly versed in "romancing" a woman. She seems more like the one pursuing him to enter this relationship.

Speaking of relationships, this is also where the movie shines. We're never entirely sure if what Suzanne is experiencing is true love, or rather if she's just looking for a way out from her husband and lifestyle. The director doesn't hold anything back, showing the vulnerability of each of the three character, how selfish they can be, discarding their responsibilities, lying and justifying reprehensible acts against each others.

This film is fascinating because, in the true tradition of French cinema, it goes for realism. You've seen some of these things happen around you, you may have lived through them. Watch this movie with a few people and you're likely to find people split. Some might sympathize with Suzanne, others with her husband, others with her lover. Yet others might sympathize with all three or none of them.

In short, Catherine Corsini is not trying to tell you what you should think and lets you make your own impressions throughout the events depicted. There is joy and pain in relationships because relationships, like us, aren't perfect. This is one such story, showcasing the imperfections.

My rating would be higher had we been provided with more context. We barely get a glimpse of Suzanne before she meets Yvan. As well, the conclusion did seem sudden and over-the- top to me. Lastly, I feel the husband and children could have used a few more minutes of screen time.

Kristin Scott Thomas is among the finest English actresses of her generation so it's too bad for us Brits that she prefers to live and work in France. Leaving is a sort of hybrid of Lady Chatterley's Lover and elements of Scott Thomas' own life; the plot has an upper-class woman falling in love with a handyman and if her doctor husband (Yvan Attal) is not physically crippled he is emotionally dead. Scott Thomas herself moved to France at nineteen, married a French gynaecologist with whom she had three children, divorced in 2005 and had a well documented affair with a younger layman. It is, of course, all in the wrist and in this case wrists plural, those on the arms of writer-director Corsini, Scott Thomas and the two men in her life, husband Yvan Attal and lover Sergi Lopez. Thomas is simply outstanding maintaining the standard she set in such recent French gems as Tell No One and I've Loved You So Long. Both men are accomplished actors and offer fine support despite knowing full well that it is Thomas' film. With luck she'll get the Cesar/Oscar she so richly deserves.

Catherine Corsini's drama about infidelity and its consequences follows hot on the heels of Mademoiselle Chambon and I Am Love, two other recent similarly themed dramas from Europe.

Kristin Scott Thomas (from I've Loved You So Long, etc) plays Suzanne, a happily married forty-something mother of two adolescent children. Her husband Samuel (played by noted Israeli actor/ director Yvan Attal) is a successful surgeon, well off, respected and politically well connected. When Suzanne decides that she wants to return to work as a physiotherapist after having spent the past fifteen years raising her two children, Samuel is supportive and decides to redevelop the garage into an office and clinic for her.

He hires family friend Remi (Bernard Blancan) to oversee the construction work. But Remi is busy and subcontracts the job to Ivan (Sergi Lopez, best remembered as the villain of Pan's Labyrinth). Suzanne finds herself attracted to the swarthy, sweaty Spaniard, and begins a torrid affair with him. She announces that she plans to leave her family to live with Ivan, a decision that tears apart the once loving and close-knit family, and has tragic consequences.

Scott Thomas' terrific performance as the passionate Suzanne, who has grown bored with her comfortable life, drives this French drama. Her facial expressions brilliantly and silently convey a gamut of expressions, from joy, happiness, ecstasy, to guilt, determination and doubt, and we can almost see what she's thinking. And her ability to speak French perfectly is tremendous. Attal (from Rush Hour 3, Munich, etc) is also good as Samuel; initially he seems a sympathetic character, but he quickly reveals himself capable of extreme cruelty in the face of Suzanne's betrayal. Lopez is also very good.

Although Leaving shares a number of thematic similarities with the recent I Am Love, it is a better film. It is more engaging and emotionally satisfying than that pretentious, self-consciously arty and ultimately dull drama. Gaelle Mace's script is sparse, stripped back to the essentials, and Corsini's direction is suitably economical. There's not a wasted moment, or hint of flab or unnecessary padding in its brief but intense 85 minutes.

I saw this at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and I can say now, even with half the festival still to go, this will be the best film I'll see. In fact, I think it could be my favourite film all year

Kristin Scott Thomas plays a well-to-do-wife, Suzanne, with a happy home life who falls in love with a handyman, Ivan, and gives up everything for him. It's the quality of the movie that makes it outstanding. This is a movie without a single clichéd or false emotion.

There's a scene where Suzanne is with her lover, I think the first time, but she has been with him too long and needs to return home to her family. She says, "I think you'll have to order me to leave." He then, half-jokingly, says, "Leave." I'm no expert on acting, but as a viewer I knew exactly what Suzanne was thinking at that moment. I could see that it hurt her to hear him telling her to leave, even in jest. And then she suddenly realizes, at that moment, that the reason it hurt was that she was in love with him. I'm sure I saw all this in Ms. Thomas' face and that has to be great acting.

But the entire movie felt absolutely real. The husband acted typically possessive, but in the case of this movie, it wasn't exaggerated for effect and I even felt some sympathy for him. The husband's lawyer confesses discomfort at how the husband wants to proceed against her and says, "She's my friend too." You wouldn't hear a lawyer say that in any Hollywood movie. Even the love scenes, which were still sexy, but were realistic.

More importantly, Suzanne's obsession isn't handled in any typical, clichéd manner. You're never entirely certain if she's in love or just in lust. You're never entirely sure if she's not just in the middle of a mid-life crisis and slightly unstable. I think the movie is saying that it doesn't really matter.

Catherine Corsini directed and wrote the movie. A male director, like the doomed husband in the movie, might not have understood that love is love, regardless of the cause.

Leaving (2009)

A very dry slice of life, and a common and awful slice of life--the breakup of a seemingly okay marriage. It's a very modern, well off, pan European series of events, mostly taking place in the south of France. There is devastation, violence, sex, hurt children, hurt friends, and mostly a lot of pain between the ecstasies. And I suppose that's how it really goes down. Fair enough.

But not necessarily the most engaging movie. I'm not talking about being entertained, but about being lifted, or made to rethink something serious, or maybe even be swept away in something lyrical. Not so. This is deliberately (or not) a study in realism, and yet a glossy one, with some neat ends tied up here and there. I mean, it may be a series of fairly realistic events, but this is a simplified, "nice" world.

The one really solid reason to watch this is the stellar, nuanced, deeply felt performance by British actress Kristin Scott Thomas. The range of moods is amazing, and moving, if you can get absorbed otherwise.

This is a movie that stays with you for a long time after viewing. The acting is extraordinary, the attraction between the two main characters palpable, the photography and sceneries beautiful. I really don't see why so much negative criticism is directed toward the plot. Passion has existed since time beginning and this is what this movie is all about, an uncontrollable, all consuming passion, which is made very believable by the wonderful.Kristin Scott Thomas. Sergi López is perfect as the lover, passionate, tender and vulnerable. If you are looking for the reason why Suzanne falls in love with him, those are the main reasons, besides the fact that he is obviously good looking. I enjoyed the movie tremendously. Every scene was essential to the plot, no gratuitous sex scenes here. And the style was elegant, as only the French know how to do.

Suzanne's life is a terrible struggle between two men. One she does'nt love anymore, her husband, and the other she simply cannot live without. Everything opposes these two men: the husband is an Hospital Don, he represents security, twenty years of bourgeois life style, social status, children too ... On the other hand, the lover is a simple worker, and an ex-convict. But Suzan falls madly in love with him, she jeopardizes her comfortable life for this liaison, and one can see that if she does voluntarily she also has no real choice as her attraction for her lover is stronger than anything else. Kristin Scott Thomas is beautiful in this role of a woman who plunges into her own sensuality and renounces to all appearances, for the sake of pure , brutal, carnal love. Her Husband's revenge is terrible; he uses every mean that his social status, and money, give him to hunt down the illegitimate couple, and finally manages to get the lover back to jail, but he cannot recover his wife. She's gone for good, even if he makes love to her for the last time before she -logically- kills him. I have always been a great fan of KST, but I am happy that it's in a French film, that, for the first time, she gives all the magic of her talent. Very far from the snappy English lady roles that the British cinema keeps for her usually. I have seen the film with a female friend, and, funnily enough, I was the one who refused to judge Suzan's behavior. There are things which escape totally to social rules and real love is one of them.

She cheats, she lies, she leaves her family. You'd have every right to hate Suzanne, yet you don't. The one you hate is her self-righteous husband. It's nothing short of a miracle how Kristin Scott-Thomas and Yvan Attal pull it off. Admittedly, the script makes sure her betrayal brings out the worst in him, but I doubt you would take her side so easily if you read about it in a novel. It rings so true because writer-director Catherine Corsini works with a fine script and a first-rate cast. The way Sam cuts Suzanne off from the family fortune may be stretching the facts of civil law a tad, but it goes to show that there's no equality without economic independence. Despite its strong social message, the movie keeps you on the edge of your seat like a thriller. Take your family.

Suzanne, the wife of Samuel, a French doctor, seems to have it all. Not being completely happy with her life, she decides to go back to work in the field of physiotherapy. For that purpose, the house in a suburb of Nimes, in Southern France, must be fixed so she can have her own space. The renovation is going to be done by a Spanish worker, Ivan, who knows what to do.

Everything seems to be progressing well, but Suzanne is instrumental in an injury to Ivan. Feeling guilty about it, she volunteers to bring him to his home across the border, so he can see his daughter. Suzanne is taken with the atmospheric surrounding and suddenly she begins differently about the hired hand she employed. They begin a passionate love affair that destroys her marriage to Samuel, even at the expense of losing her two children.

Suzanne, shows character when she confesses her love for Ivan to a husband that does not want to hear about her sexual relations to a man that he feels is not worthy of her. Suzanne, being English, shows a decent attitude by coming clean. Samuel, who wants to keep her, in spite of her having cheated on him, has a surprise coming because he did not think what a woman in love can do to get her way.

Catherine Corsini gives this film a better production that probably was not in the screenplay by Gael Mace. She shows an affinity for making the viewer get involved in all that is happening, although sometimes it is hard for a woman in Suzanne's position to throw everything away in exchange for an uncertain life with a man that is obviously not in her same class. Ah, well, it all for the sake of love. Ms. Corsini shows good judgment in trusting cinematographer Agnes Godard to work wonders with the magical light of Southern France.

The main attraction for watching "Leaving" is Kristin Scott Thomas, a versatile actress that has been working a lot in France. One cannot blame her when she gets juicier parts like her Suzanne in this movie. Wonderful Sergi Lopez plays another one of his hunks. His Ivan shows he is a decent man that has fallen for the forbidden woman out of his league. Yvan Attal plays Samuel, the deceived husband.

Although this is a simple story it's a powerful illustration of an abusive relationship which leads to tragedy. We all know that many, many marriages are abusive, and financial control of women is a primary instrument for keeping them in line. Since Kristen Scott Thomas is beautiful and fragile (and she is far more attractive in French) we sympathize with her plight as she falls for a man without money and chooses to leave her husband, who is wealthy.

The situation brings out the ugliness in them both, and the story proceeds to its horrible end.

Hollywood would not have made this, because its not complex enough, but perhaps what the film says is that some aspects of life are unchanging. It reminds us of the feminist mantra that men actually despise women. Germaine Greer has been trying to tell people to remember this fact since the 1960s. It reminds us that power relationships are ugly when people push against them, like Rosa Parks on the bus, or a slave murdering his owner and being hanged for a 'crime'. In fact, this is a disturbing film, looking directly at territory that most entertainment glosses over.

This is one huge subtle heart-breaking performance by Kristin Scott Thomas! She makes this film shine, no doubt, no matter how good both male leads are. She can do it because the script by director Catherine Corsinsi and Gaëlle Macè is concise, psychologically sound and realistic throughout, except for the ending where I see some magic realism. We don't need to know more about the characters than what the script offers. Our sympathy and empathy comes and goes between the 3 characters (and the children!) and our hearts break at the amount of damage that can result – but would not need to if different choices had been made, especially by the husband! – from love. It is a story familiar to almost everyone. Most of us have lived our own similar experience – or at least heard from others near to us. This movie is already in my top ten list of 2010 (why oh why did it reach Argentina only now???) and is the second this year to get 10/10.

Another bad Italian translation ("The English lover"), of the original, more evocative title "Partir", which does not do justice to the bare crudity and edginess of the movie. Nothing new in the portrait of the old-fashioned triangle husband, wife, lover: the wife is dissatisfied with a despotic husband, and a colourless family, but wants to feel life again, when another man arrives, and the dangerous game may easily start: she is looking for love, he does not really care about what to look for, she says "I love you", he says "I like you", she chooses, he just reacts according to her choices, she gives everything away, he loses nothing: that's sadly realistic. But the intelligence of the picture lies, indeed, in the crude, lucid representation of how this triangle constantly reappears, destroys everything, and leaves nothing: a wheel of passion, attraction and destruction, portrayed with a strained, dry, cold perspective, which leaves the viewer wordless and with no sense of any possible solution. No romance, no sweet words, but hard facts, and whichever opinion one may have of betrayal, what is certain and incontrovertible is that any betrayal, mainly for women, means that nothing will be as beforehand, a kind of balance, however fragile and even insane, is destroyed, and everything has to be rethought and rebuilt from anew, but no easy or possible way out is in sight. Kristin Scott Thomas delivers a great performance: she appears as a sadly modern madame Bovary, in all her powerful, natural middle age charm, in a tragic, but highly controlled, mixture of sadness, dissatisfaction, but yearning for passion, and in the end she proves the weakest in the triangle, not only from an economic point of view. In the end, a sense of disenchanted disarm prevails, when no good, even no love is to be found, because love cannot produce such pain and destruction. However, a very good piece of cinema, really worth seeing.

The upper middle-class lady meets worker and a passionate affair takes place. That's not an uncommon theme in our hemisphere, but it's very easy to parodize. Not at least when it's taken so seriously as here.

Of course the subject is a serious one, like all love stories are, both on film and in reality. But on film the rules are fairly known. We are aware of the signs, we expect a certain plot and certain things to happen and I'm sorry to say that this film doesn't make us disappointed, Or perhaps that's exactly what we are supposed to be and also are.

Don't give us another southern French passion story, until the genre is renewed.

Kristin Scott Thomas has tended to play hard-ass women who keep their emotions in check, but in LEAVING the ice-princess doesn't just melt, she gives off steam! The sex scenes between Suzanne, the bored Parisian housewife, and her beefy Spanish builder are fairly bracing; it's clearly not his intellect that she's fallen for. Swapping her sterile modern house (irony here: her dull husband's a surgeon) for a seedy suburban apartment doesn't seem to faze her, but drama - indeed, melodrama - is lurking on the horizon. The director gives most of the ending away at the beginning (echoes of Sunset Boulevard), which I thought was a mistake.

Wife takes lover, tragedy ensues: it's a hoary old plot that shouldn't work but it does, thanks entirely to Scott Thomas's incandescent performance. Hopefully, she'll win awards for this.

Kristen Scott Thomas is excellent in 'Leaving', a traumatic but excellent film about the break up of a relationship. Much is acutely observed here: the casually indifferent husband who becomes a monster when crossed; the affair, depicted without moral judgement, that attains unexpected emotional significance because of the previously hidden fault-lines it exposes; the sex scenes, unusually effective, in which much is conveyed through the pattern of breath. Plus there's a luscious (but sensitive) soundtrack, and Scott Thomas's brilliant performance as a woman gradually losing her grip on first happiness, and then sanity. The ending is subtly different to the one first suggested: that it is a happier one is unclear in a dark tale.

Sorry to interrupt the trend of the 3 enthusiasts preceding me. As is so often the case, the actors here save the movie from total ridicule. The director and camera-work also comes out pretty well. The rub is the screenplay, which is so French (a high testosterone level always the key)and so predictable. In Lady Chatterley, the husband was at least handicapped. Here, the husband is no less emotionally handicapped than his wife. As for the lover, well, please, I would expect something a bit more saucy than this ruddy and utterly unsavory Catalonian mason. Scott-Thomas does her best, and Attal is pretty convincing, but I guess they are paid to slog through this nondescript failure.

Partir (Leaving) is a very powerful and wonderfully crafted French film. I found it immediately interesting that within the first few minutes of the film we are thrown into a web of suspense as a rifle is shot in the middle of the night. I was enthralled by the immediate tension that was created and was on the edge of my seat for the remainder of the movie. I have always enjoyed movies that begin with the ending, which is why I found this movie to be so exciting. The film is directed by Catherine Corsini. Corsini is a French film director and screenwriter, directing 15 films since 1982. A particular film that she directed, La répétition, was entered in the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. One idea in the film that I found intriguing was the lengths a person will go to for happiness or love. A great example of this was at the end of the film when Suzanne shoots her husband with the rifle and flees from their home to be with her lover, Ivan. Suzanne is willing to give up her children and her life by murdering her husband rather than spend another minute with him. All she seems concerned about is being with Ivan and living her life happily by his side, sacrificing everything along the way. A second idea that I found captivating was the dynamics of marriage and responsibilities to the family. Suzanne seems to give up most of her responsibilities when she begins having her affair with Ivan. A prime example of this is when Suzanne and her husband's extended family come for dinner and she steps outside to answer a call from Ivan. Her husband ends up catching her talking to him and locks her in their bedroom for the remainder of dinner. This represents how little consideration she had for spending time with her family and how much more her affair with Ivan meant to her. A "movie buff" comment I would like to make is the power of music, or lack thereof, in this film. An example of this is during the intimate scenes between Suzanne and Ivan. There is no music played during these scenes which I feel brings more intimacy to the moment. A second "movie buff" topic is the use of landscape to convey beauty in the film. An example of this is when Suzanne and Ivan are exploring their potential new home in the beautiful green mountains. In comparison, when we see Suzanne with her husband they always seem to be in places very plain and devoid of beauty. We see how in love Suzanne and Ivan are throughout the film, which I find portrayed through the beauty of the landscape. In contrast, we see how plain and loveless Suzanne's marriage to her husband is through the lack of color and vibrancy in their home.

I can only concur with others. This film is a cliché. It's never shown or mentioned what is wrong with the married couple's relationship. She could have explained it to her lover, but no. Nothing. Then we get to the lover. Where is the attraction? He's not young, not good looking; all could be forgotten if he were charming or witty. Nope. Nothing to explain why an attractive wife would go for this ex-con. What a catch :) It could be bored housewife just looking for sex. Nope. She goes and falls in love with the guy. What nonsense. So we have a middle class family who seemingly want for nothing. Doctor husband. Wife needs do nought, but experiment with physiotherapy. An accident in the film and the doctor who treats her lover is her husband. How many doctors are there in Nimes? Quite. She falls in love with someone who in real life she'd not even fancy. Find dilapidated old cottage in Pyrenees to renovate and live in forever. Is there some software somewhere which churns out these plots?

Kristin Scott Thomas holds this very French love triangle drama together through exquisitely nuanced acting. The one leap of faith for the audience is that she, a great beauty, would fall for the local handyman, Ivan; but love has its own logic and the possibility does not stretch credulity. The way they get together involves some of the most amusing sequences in the film, ably directed by Catherine Corsini. The action centers entirely, apart from one telling sequence, around Suzanne. We see the story through her eyes, a woman hopelessly in love.

Her husband Samuel, played convincingly by Yvan Attal, is devastated at the prospect of losing his wife. He is a pillar of the local establishment of a provincial town in South West France. He will use his power to keep her in line. Do watch for the moment, recognisable to all parents who have teenage children, when Suzanne, having prepared a roast chicken for the evening, is informed by her son that "he had chicken for lunch". The film has many such vignette moments and you will find both the dilemmas and the way they are presented, returning to you long after the film has concluded.

A Truffaut like moral tale it is small in scale but nevertheless a perfect vehicle for the emotional range of Kristin Scott Thomas.

A movie where nothing makes sense - where the story is the 50th rehash of some D.H. Lawrence story, where one trite cliché chases another. What on earth is the (frustrated or not) wife seeing in this Spanish laborer - I really want to know. He has the charm of an old dog, he looks like a (fat) old dog and - hold on - they make sex like ...how more boring can it get?

A script written by numbers, her son is in her side, her daughter is on dad's side, and on and on... it would all make sense in some kind of Latin telenovela. Terrible to watch what actors have to go through to make a living.

"Partir," shown in the U.S. as "Leaving" (2009) was co-written and directed by Catherine Corsini.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays Suzanne, a French wife and mother who is bored with her "perfect" life. She is rich, beautiful, and seemingly happily married.

However, she decides to do something more than just be idle, so she returns to her earlier profession of physical therapy. Her husband is paying for an office for his wife, which will be adjacent to their home. Although wealthy, he squeezes every Euro out of the building contractor. That causes the contractor to hire a Spanish worker, who will work for non-union wages. Suzanne falls passionately in love with the worker--Ivan--and what happens next makes up the plot of the movie.

As someone pointed out on the message board, no one behaves intelligently. When she is desperate for money, Suzanne--despite her education and her elegance and beauty--ends up doing manual labor at the lowest level. (Literally--she's picking vegetables.) Didn't she consider working in a dress shop or as a receptionist if she couldn't find a PT position?

Kristin Scott Thomas is English, but she lives in France. She's very convincing as a woman who arrived in France when she was very young, and now is completely French. The movie manages to work because Scott Thomas has so much star power and such a strong screen presence. However, beauty and elegance can only take a movie so far. If you analyze the film carefully, the whole thing falls apart.

I saw the movie on DVD, and that worked well for the interpersonal aspects. However, there were several scenes of great natural beauty, which were lost on the small screen. I don't think that Partir is a movie worth seeking out, except if you are dazzled by Kristin Scott Thomas, who is in virtually every scene. However, I think it's somewhat better than the very low IMDb rating would suggest.

Kristin Scott-Thomas is an accomplished actor, but she cannot save this desperate concatenation of clichés - unhappy housewife with two children, boring (and apparently misogynistic) husband, swarthy, sexy Latin lover, etc. Her character, Suzanne, elicits little or no sympathy, only bewilderment and contempt, and her husband, Samuel, seems much too good for her. The sex scenes between her and Ivan were risible. Ms. Corsini might have intended for the film to have a narrative and a them or themes, but it was impossible to detect any. If Ms. Corsini had any "punches to throw," she pulled them. Some of the scenery, however, was well-photographed, so at least Agnès Godard comes away with some credit.

I saw this film for the first time, some months ago. It stayed with me to the point that I began watching it again, just before writing this review. I was unable to finish watching, knowing already how the film would end.

Ms Thomas's performance & film presence is outstanding. Once I got past her physical beauty, I was able to focus on the character she was portraying & how she inhabited that woman & what she had to deal with in the changes to her past life.

Maybe at some future time I will re-visit this fine film & try to make it to the end. For now, I have added it to My Movie list & will approach it with caution, knowing the powerful affect it had on me both times I saw it.

If you are a Ms Thomas fan, I recommend it... but be aware, this is not for the faint of heart.

I enjoyed several aspects to the film, Partir. The opening scene catches the audience's attention by showing two of the main characters and an unexplained gunshot. The entire film keeps you intrigued and on your toes wondering what will happen next all leading up to that mysterious gunshot from the beginning. The director, Catherine Corsini , was born and 1956 and is a French director and screenwriter. She has directed 15 films since 1982, her latest being Partir, and her most famous La repetition was entered into the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. One idea found in the film is the determination to find true love and happiness. Suzanne is unhappy with her husband and children and she falls for a man, Ivan, which she eventually will do anything for. Another important idea in the film is marital problems. Suzanne falls in love with another man, confesses her affair but finds out she can no longer love her husband regardless of the money and housing her husband had provided her. An aspect of the film I noticed was that there was barely any music. The silence between scenes and conversations created more suspense and wonderment. For example, the scene when Suzanne tells her husband about the affair is completely silent throughout the conversation, which causes to you really engage in the scene. A second aspect to the film I enjoyed was the symbolism of the two houses Suzanne is torn between. There is her husband's house that is large, spacious, and dark, whereas Ivan's home is small, but is bright and welcoming. I recommend this film if you enjoy drama, suspense, and unexpected twists.

Dazzled by her performance in the ultra-stylish Thriller Love Crime,I decided to keep a look out for other films starring Kristin Scott Thomas (KST!) Taking a look at BBC iPlayer,I was thrilled to spot a Thomas film about to be taken from the site,which led to me leaving for a viewing.

The plot:

Despite having the "perfect" bourgeois lifestyle, Suzanne finds herself to be emotionally unfulfilled. Getting her husband Samuel to put a room in his office, Suzanne begins showing round for a builder. Crossing paths with former prisoner Ivan,Suzanne is taken by his rugged looks and begins to have an affair with Ivan. Pushed to confess the affair to Samuel,Suzanne finds herself having to decide if she wants to stay with Ivan or stay with her bourgeois lifestyle.

View on the film:

Presenting a stripped-down affair,co-writer/(along with Gaëlle Macé/Antoine Jaccoud & Emmanuelle Bernheim) director Catherine Corsini and cinematographer Agnès Godard stab the violent passion Suzanne and Ivan have for each other with razor-sharp editing giving the sex scenes a heated atmosphere. Placing Suzanne's against an unfulfilled backdrop, Corsini completely drains the film of colour,with the washed out, bleached appearance reflecting Suzanne's feelings.

Despite the "rich housewife falls for builder" sounding like the outline of an "Adult" movie,the screenplay by Corsini/Macé/Jaccoud and Bernheim break the hollow bourgeois with an earthy Drama of Suzanne and Ivan try in desperation to hold onto their blue-collar threads,as Samuel turns the screws on Suzanne for rejecting the bourgeois lifestyle. Joined by a humble Sergi López as Ivan and a greasy Samuel, Kristin Scott Thomas gives an impeccable performance as Suzanne,by Thomas getting under the brittle nails on Suzanne discovering what matters to her when her bourgeois gifts leave.