Kristen Scott Thomas is a very busy woman......
Kristen Scott Thomas is a very busy woman. In constant demand in both England and America, as well as her adopted home of France, where she has lived since she was 19, over the past decade she has appeared in at least two, and more often three, films a year.
Most recently, this festival season she’s on the circuit with Ethan Hawke promoting The Woman in the Fifth, director Pawel Pawlikowski’s arthouse film, which is being received well. Closer to home, this month she can be found on Rialto Channel where she’s involved in our femmes fatales month, staring in French thriller Love Crime (Tuesday 25th October, 8.30pm).
If you think the person you work for is challenging, then Kristen Scott Thomas’ performance as Christine, an ambitious corporate executive whose management techniques include psychological abuse and public humiliation, might make you consider yourself fortunate. Christine is initially relaxed about claiming her young assistant Isabelle’s (Ludivine Sangier) ideas as her own, and sharing her lover Philippe with Isabelle, but when Isabelle decides to stand up for herself the three engage in all-out war.
This was the last film directed by Alain Corneau, who died two weeks after the film was released in France in 2010. The title, Love Crime, sums up what you can expect; a film divided into two parts, the sexual tension and romantic liaisons between the characters, and a mysterious crime thriller. There are too many good twists and turns to give anything more away, but with Scott Thomas at her most assured, manipulative and nasty, Love Crime is worth catching this week.
Another film that has caught my attention this week is the languid and nostalgic The City of Your Final Destination (Saturday 29th October, 8.30m). This is a Merchant Ivory production, you know, the people that brought us A Room with a View, The Remains of the Day and Howards End. Since Ismail Merchant, the producing partner in the firm, passed away in 2005 this particular project has been left in the hands of 81-year-old director James Ivory.
It’s an adaptation of Peter Cameron’s novel of the same name, and the story of Omar, a Kansas University doctoral student, who travels to a remote, decaying rural estate in Uruguay to convince the family of esteemed and deceased writer Jules Gund to let him write a Gund biography. In Uruguay he meets Gund’s widow (Laura Linney), his brother (Anthony Hopkins) and his mistress (Charlotte Gainsbough), and must convince them all the biography should go ahead.
Linney is a standout as Caroline Gund, a character yearning to move on and yet obliged to stay and protect her family. In tandem with Hopkins, Linney’s stellar performance elevates this film; so while we don’t see many well mannered films like this these days it doesn’t feel old-fashioned.
Add to that, lush and sumptuous cinematography (by DOP Javier Aguirresarobe - Talk to Her, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and an engaging soundtrack, and it’s hard not get dragged into the Gund’s family drama.
Enjoy,
Francesca