(France/Luxembourg, 103 min.)
Written and directed by Philippe Claudel
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Kristin Scott Thomas, Leïla
Bekhti, Richard Berry.
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| Kristin Scott Thomas in Avant l'hiver. (UGC Distribution / Fabrizio Malteze) |
It’s tragic to think that French Kristin Scott Thomas movies
are an endangered species. Strangely, though, one can’t help but keep the great
ex-pat British actress in mind, and her revelation this year that she “cannot
endure another film,” while watching Before
the Winter Chill (Avant l’hiver),
her latest collaboration with
writer/director Philippe Claudel. Chill
is a good film by any measure and Miss Scott Thomas is very fine in an
underwritten role as “the wife” Lucie, but that’s exactly the problem. If one
considers that Mr. Claudel is the same talent who penned and directed 2008’s I’ve Loved You So You Long, a
devastating drama in which Miss Scott Thomas gives the performance of her
career, then Before the Winter Chill
is bound to disappoint. It’s a quietly serviceable marital drama, but one that
just cries to have more meat and gusto, especially when there is so much subtly
fragile coldness, mystery, disappointment, and despair percolating in Lucie’s
eyes whenever she’s on screen.
This tale of a marital malaise focuses primarily on the late-life crisis of Paul (Daniel Auteuil), a workaholic neurosurgeon who loves the office but barely finds time to come home. Paul clearly takes pride in his work, but he is thrown for a loop when a young bartender named Lou (Leïla Bekhti) thanks him for saving her life during an emergency appendectomy she had during her youth. Paul is strangely put off by the gushing compliment, and doubly so when bouquets of flowers start appearing at his office, on his car, and (much to Lucie’s chagrin) his home.
Claudel sets up Before
the Winter Chill with the promise of leading it into boiled bunny territory
thanks to a framing device that puts Paul in the hot seat answering questions
about a woman on whom he performed an appendectomy. Odds are it is Lou and not
Lucie, and Before the Winter Chill
leads its successful doctor down a familiar route that sees a bored man stray
from the path. The film never really thrills as a thriller, since it’s far too
sedate and methodical. Claudel unfolds Paul’s bizarre entanglement with Lou,
whom he fully suspects is deranged, at a languidly meditative pace that doesn’t
benefit from the film being marketed as a thriller.
More interesting, however, is the way that Before the Winter Chill crumbles Paul
and Lucie’s marriage almost tangentially. They’re rarely together in the film,
and the film shivers with a palpable coldness whenever Auteuil and Scott Thomas
share the frame. Claudel mostly conveys the dissolution of their marriage by
repeating the image of Lucie tending to the vast garden on the family estate as
she readies it for the barren season ahead. Before
the Winter Chill devises some fine pathetic fallacy as Claudel uses the
oncoming frost and the cold, crisp greyness of the landscape to visualize the a
marriage growing cold. The demure, measured cinematography plays with the
frostiness of their marriage quite nicely.
The interiors of Paul and Lucie’s house are equally chilly,
for Lucie’s sister likens it to a glass coffin in an early scene, and the rest
of Before the Winter Chill sees Lucie
kill time in an empty and immaculately kept house that looks devoid of life and
warmth. Scott Thomas excels in many of the film’s quietly contemplative moments
as Claudel shatters Lucie’s comfortable life with her slow suffocation. An
underlying relationship between Lucie and Paul’s colleague Gérard (Richard
Berry), on the other hand, is playfully mysterious. As Paul strays from Lucie
and becomes infatuated with Lou, Before
the Winter Chill increasingly implies that Lucie is having her own escape
from a dull and unhappy marriage, but playing the part of the long-suffering
wife just for show. If the film only developed this subplot further, then the
cooling marriage might have been a thrilling double bind.
Everything is secondary to Paul’s entanglement with Lou,
however, and the main thread of the film simply doesn’t match the same level of
intriguing or titillating critique of bourgeois ennui as the supporting parts
of the film do. Auteuil is surprisingly wan, compared to Bekhti’s fiery
seductress, Scott Thomas’s subtle tragedy, and Berry’s beguiling charm, so Before the Winter Chill ultimately
leaves one cold.
It’s not a bad coldness, though. Rather, it’s a partially
refreshing one thanks to the chilling music that plays with mood and feeling,
especially the closing credits number that provides unexpected goose bumps. The
film sets the chill as it cuts to an icy stare from Lucie as she sees years of
denied happiness hit her in face shortly after she toasts to another summer in
the glass coffin. It’s a devastating reminder how terrific Scott Thomas can be
whenever a film actually gives her something to do, but, sadly, all good things
fade…
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Before the Winter Chill is now available on home video.
