The Woman Next Door

A very up and down movie with traces of the French New Wave but a very different tone. It's a story of love and passion that was at times engaging and at times left me perplexed as to what the characters were thinking. It's well done and ends strongly, but I didn't connect with it.

How frustrating that some of Truffaut's films are these amazing, vibrant, lovely experiences, but so many of them are Just Plain Movies. Except for a couple of inspired moments there's no zing to this one, no spark. As a tale of romantic obsession, it does the job, but that's the thing: it feels like just another job for Truffaut. Bernard and Matilde are somehow incomplete and inaccessible. There are some tidbits of insight, but not much you haven't seen before. Satisfactory but unremarkable.

My score is an acknowledgement of the film's formal qualities and legacy rather than of any personal affection for it. It's the best realisation of this kind of artistic project--the minute examination of bourgeois adultery that would come to dominate French arthouse cinema--but it's just not a project I have much of an interest in. It's difficult not to see it, maybe a little unfairly, as a testament to the fading creative energy of the New Wave.

There's some exaggerated parts in the plot, though.

Couple of heartfelt parts, but also clichés and an overly dramatic ending.

François Truffaut #2

# 662

688

82.50

82.000

Classic French Movie, Fanny Ardant at his best !

Very French film about an obsessive love affair - it didn't convince.

625

Solid melodrama (in a good way) about a coincidence that becomes a tragedy. The performances are all good and the story kept my attention throughout. The ending elevates it as well. I would have liked perhaps a bit more about the fallout with their respective partners, but I can't complain too much about this.

“Neither with you nor without you.”

#629

While this latter day Truffaut film is not among his very best (400 Blows, Jules & Jim, etc.), it's still a well made film with solid performances by young Depardieu & Ardant. It takes good use of its rural French setting and contains another beautiful soundtrack from Georges Delerue. The characters remain a bit distant, but it's still another solid entry in Truffaut's filmography.

Nice enough effort from Truffaut, even as there's nothing particularly earth-shattering about it. Troubling to find out this is your father's favorite film, though.