A Girl Cut in Two (review)

It’s billed as a “Hitchcockian thriller,” but frankly I see nothing either Hitchcockian nor thrilling this same-old Gallic tale of an older man, the younger woman who adores him for no apparent reason (even as he insults her and treats her like a child), and the other, younger man who wants her and might possibly maybe do something violent to get her. If there’s satire in filmmaker Claude Chabrol’s tedious romantic roundrobin -- did I mention that the old man, a writer (François Berléand), is married, and so has at least one other woman on his mind? did I mention that the younger man (Benoît Magimel) has a dodgy history his with people he supposedly might be expected to love? -- I can’t see it. Is it supposed to be satirical that the girl (Ludivine Sagnier) has nothing to recommend her but dewey youth, uncomplicated beauty, and a tendency to mope to a suicidal degree when her heart gets broken by a man decades older than her? (Not that that’s actually something to recommend her, except perhaps in the fantasies of men like almost 80-year-old Chabrol.) That looks like a helluva lot like other damn story of the younger woman/older man dynamic we’ve ever seen.
viewed at home on a small screen
not rated
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comments
posted by MaSch (Thu Jul 09 09, 7:28AM)
Well, I saw the new Chabrol-movie this week in a sneak preview, which featured dialogues like:
He: Everything changes, but women's legs.
She: Are you being nostalgic?
He: No, I'm being sexist.
Wait, the last bit was not really in the movie, but would have been more appropriate. But I guess you get the picture.