User Reviews

When we first meet Anne and Pierre, they seem to be a normal couple. They are dining out with their friends Victor and Claire. The first thing that raises our guard is when we see Pierre caressing Anne's hand at the cinema where they are watching a film. Anne, seems unduly irritated, for a woman that is happily married, when she takes her hand away. Later on, when Pierre meets Anne for lunch, her face reveals she is not physically in the restaurant with her husband; her mind is someplace else.

This tightly knitted film, directed by Christopher Vincent, who collaborated on the screen play with novelist Dan Franck, is a visual feast for lovers of the French cinema, as two of the best actors are paired to get inside the couple at the center of the story.

It doesn't feel strange that Anne confesses to Pierre that she has fallen in love with someone else. Anne is a woman that seems distant, even with her young son, Loulou, an eighteen months toddler, who must have arrived late in her life. At the same time, she gives the impression that she doesn't hate Pierre. In fact, after confessing to having another love interest, she cuddles in bed with Pierre.

Pierre, on the other hand, can't believe Anne could have betrayed him. He is a devoted husband and a loving father to his young son, who is the center of his life. Pierre realizes he will lose custody of Loulou because the French laws favor the mother as the natural custodian. The real surprise comes toward the end, when everything seems lost for Pierre. Anne confesses she has ended the liaison with this mystery man for good. That confession makes us wonder if there was ever such a person. Was Anne testing Pierre's love, or was she suffering boredom from a too normal life and wanted to add a spark to it? We never get to the answer, which will be different for many viewers.

The best achievement of this film is the superb acting Mr. Vincent got from his two stars. Isabelle Huppert is an enigmatic Anne. We never know where she is at any given time. In contrast, Daniel Auteuil's Pierre makes us feel the pain that has been inflicted in his heart by Anne's admission of another man in her life. Both actors give wonderful performances, guided by the director.

This film is painful to watch because of the raw intensity of what we see on the screen.

I wouldn't be surprised if Huppert faked her affair with the mysterious "lover" just to solicit her husband's attention. At the end it seems as if she had "forgiven" him and tries to win him back to their home. Her interpretations often grab the audience by the throat, leaving spectators often in a state of mesmerizing suspense, and I am using the word "mesmerizing" because of her ability to seduce and own the viewers' eyes. She is a woman who has a way with men, she makes them believe what she wants, she makes them want her and agonize over her, over her insane requests and behavior throughout the movies she stars in.

After seeing her in some of her movies, I feel comfortable saying that she could have been a good main character in Ozon's "Sous le Sable", where the role of the widow is played by a phenomenal Charlotte Rampling (remember when she runs on the beach at the end?).

The story in 'La separation' ('The Separation'), made in 1994 by Christian Vincent, takes place in an interval of three months. During this time the couple formed by Pierre (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Isabelle Huppert) breaks up. Apparently, everything seems simple and straightforward. As spectators, we see in the film exactly what the title describes, the separation of a couple living a seemingly peaceful and comfortable common life, from the first signs to an explosion of violence beyond which there could usually be no return. But then, when the viewing is over, when we review and analyse what we saw, we come to the conclusion that there are many questions about the meaning of scenes, gestures and details, and that the seemingly simple and clear situations hide many layers and secrets open to different interpretations. It is one of those cases where the movie gets more interesting after we finish watching it.

Pierre and Anne seem to form a very typical middle class couple. He is a cartoonist, she is a therapist. They have a 15-month-old boy whom they both adore, but they do not give up their full professional and social life. The child is with a nanny during the day, sometimes also in the evenings when the two go to the movies or meet friends. We follow what is happening, especially from Pierre's point of view. Something begins to squeak in the relationship between the two - at first the refusal of a gesture of tenderness, then her mental absence during a lunch when it is obvious that her thoughts are elsewhere. Not long after, the confession appears, calmly, without drama - she fell in love with another man. We will never see this third character. We might even doubt that he really exists. The two continue to live together. Pierre is trying to save the relationship. The lawyers are mentioned at one point, but this is not a divorce film, the two are not even legally married. When their best friends announce their intention to get married, the news amazes them, the decision of the friends falling right at the moment when their relationship was getting as close as possible to the crisis. It is a film about contretemps, about the lack of communication, about the difficulty of understanding those close to us.

'La separation' largely relies on the two lead actors and both are wonderful. The story being told from Pierre's perspective, Daniel Auteuil was on screen most of the time. The actor admirably reproduces the man's attempts to absorb the blow, the gradual accumulation of tension that inevitably breaks out at some point, his attempts to save not only the appearances but also the essence of the relationship, but also the communication problems. Isabelle Huppert is ideal for the role of Anna. Few contemporary actresses know how to create so well an aura of feminine mystery around their characters. Wrapped in silence at many key moments, she does not reveal much of her secrets to either Pierre or the spectators. The description of the evolution of the relationship between the two avoids melodrama. The ending holds a surprise for the spectators, and leaves them to imagine their own final. I recommend to those who have not seen the film yet to look for it and write their own ending for the script.

This is just one more example of why French cinema is the best in the world. No real story, no suspense, no sex, no violence BUT! also no cgi, no slasher movie #24, no Hollywood Formula - The Sequel. In short just two of the finest actors on the planet running with a situation in which virtually out of the blue the wife tells the husband she is in love with another man. It's never that quite out of the blue of course and one of the strengths of this movie is the writing on the wall which is in turn projected onto the screen; the smallest hairline fractures in what, on the surface, is a perfect marriage complete with child. Juliette Binoche is a fine actress, no question, but it is virtually impossible to picture anyone other than Isabelle Huppert in the role of Anne and the same applies to Daniel Auteuil as Pierre, each of them fully inhabits the role in which they have been cast and although there is outstanding support from Jerome Deschamps and Karin Viard it is really superfluous. One of the finest films of the 90s, not just from France but from anywhere but it helps if you go to movies to check out the Human Condition rather than to spray popcorn at each other.

....no resolution.

A generous, generous 4/10, because it's Christmas, Orthodox Christmas, but anyway.

The film is about a woman who tells her husband she's having an affair with another man. Their relationship deteriorates, it swings from hot to cold, he keeps his distance, gives her space, but they still live together, share a child and common friends. At the end he moves out, but comes by to see his kid. She tells him that she's no longer with the other man. That's the whole film.

There is no resolution to the film. The film is not about Anne's relationship with the other man (we never actually see him), but Anne's marriage with Pierre. Once she reveals the affair, the relationship sours. And it just stays sour until the end. She ends her affair, but Pierre remains in no man's land just as he was in the start, unloved by his wife and unsure what to do.

I'm not sure what the point of this film is, other than being some financial or tax scheme.

The acting is top notch, but where's the story? This film is like watching a 90- minute first act, with no second or third.

Really horrible tale of a sulky brat old woman who takes her moods to the nth degree and ends up dumping her partner.

Auteuil is gifted in conveying words and thoughts with a most expressive face. Maybe Huppert was chosen to stay straight lipped because anything more would be normal.

Complaint after complaint, zero responsibility and with the detachment of a child abuser, Huppert stares its way through an hour and a half of nothingness which naturally drives Auteuil's character bananas. Mind reading after collecting a baby was not part of the deal one imagines and as Auteuil tries in vain to work out what this empty vessel wants , he loses it anyway.

Unnaturally in their world, the kids are an accessory. No need to focus there.

What in heavens name got these characters together in the first place? Judging from Hupperts lines, falling in love happens and one must be truthful about it. Judging from Hupperts face, love and it, do not a joyful thing make.

I don't know if this film was a warning to self assured guys that your partner maybe replaced with a vacuous clone after a couple of years or to boost Huppert's m.o. With descriptive words such as 'deep' 'enigmatic' 'misunderstood' 'lost' 'sad' or 'traumatised'.

That's all I got.