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Leaving (DVD)
Year: 2009
Rating: MA
Director: Catherine Corsini
Cast: Yvan Attal, Sergi López, Kristin Scott Thomas
Release Date: February 03, 2011
Distributor: Reel
The Film: 3.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5“...representative of great French cinema...”
Housewife to a successful doctor and mother of two, Suzanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) lives a comfortable bourgeois lifestyle in the French countryside. During renovations on their home, Suzanne falls for Yvan (López), a worker who adds welcome excitement to an otherwise unfulfilling marriage. A dramatic tale of temptation, passion and the search for happiness ensues between Suzanne, her love and jealous husband.
While a simple story on the surface, Leaving succeeds in portraying the main characters with incredible honesty and realism. Kristin Scott Thomas (Sarah's Key) is wonderful as Suzanne - her emotional entanglements are vividly depicted while her motivations are shrouded in confusion. Her husband is dull, but by no means evil; her lover passionate, but no knight in shining armour. One cannot help but question the feelings of the main character; torn between sympathy and indifference to her plight.
Leaving is representative of great French cinema, with flawed characters that leave the audience trying to understand their motivations and come to their own conclusions about their actions. While the director successfully reveals a side of women that men cannot understand, Leaving would have benefitted with additional back-story and character exploration.
