Thérèse Desqueyroux Reviews

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Claude Miller's work, this movie would even be his last directing effort, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, I really struggled to care about the damned thing. I know it was adapted from a classic French novel and I might even read it at some point but I wasn't really an entertaining or interesting story, I'm afraid. The biggest issue was that even though there was a cloud of mystery around the main character which was supposed to make her fascinating to behold, I thought she was rather unlikeable, aloof and above all rather tedious. The tricky thing was that, through the whole thing, she was pretty much alone and since she didn't have a friend or some kind of confidant, she never had the opportunity to express her thoughts and feelings. The closest thing was maybe Jean Azevedo but she basically had one conversation with him. The other failure was that Thérèse Desqueyroux was supposed to be some kind of misunderstood modern thinking woman but I didn't really buy it. Sure, she apparently didn't belong to this time and place, I'll give you that, but was there anything really remarkable about her? Not really. I mean, eventually, was she fighting for anything after all? In my opinion, she had a really privileged life and she could have done pretty much anything she wanted or at least try so I never felt really sorry for her. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, anything directed by Claude Miller is always worth a look but he sure didn't end his career with a bang.