Suite Française

What a lovely movie. A truly horrid time, war, finds something so real and alive, love and passion. Michelle Williams is a true untapped resource for a strong performance. I wish she did more films. She is stunning in the most real and beautiful way. She draws you in and makes you feel every emotion tenfold. A true powerhouse of talent. Kristin Scott Thomas plays the perfect stone old maid but with an underlying warm heart. In a time of war everyone had to brick their hearts away or be dragged under by the war machine. She portrays that beautifully. She plays the part from top to bottom with the zest of a Disney villain. BUT, don't judge too quickly. Matthias....ahhh Matthias. Can't get me enough of him. Yet another hidden gem of Hollywood.

I was nearly put off going to see this after reading a few sneering reviews, which in retrospect appear to have been more an attempt by the critic to show off about their having read the novel than having actually anything to do with what's on screen.

Yes, the narration is a little heavy handed at times but ultimately necessary and the incongruous "When it comes to war you really find out what people are really like" early on felt like it was being trowelled out so we didn't miss it. Sure, it's not perfect but these are minor niggles not major flaws.

Thankfully, it isn't a boy invades village; girl falls in love; boy isn't as beastly as first thought kind of story. Life's more complicated than that. Where the film excels is that what you think of a character changes as the film progresses. There is no good German. There is no black and white collaboration. There are just people confronted with circumstances and how they react to them.

Michelle Williams brilliantly underplays her role which counteracts the clumsiness of the script in places, Matthias Schoenaerts is superb as the sensitive and conflicted man of war and the supporting cast excellent.

It's a little gem.

18 March 2015 Film of Choice at The Plaza Dorchester Tonight - Suite Française. Based on an unfinished series of books by Irène Némirovsky, a Ukranian Jew who died in Auschwitz, they were discovered and held by her children, but not read until 1998. They were eventually published as a single volume in 2004 and this film is the adaptation of that printed story. It's a tale of life in the war, a tale of love, betrayal, a tale of deceit and survival. Lucile is a young girl forced to live with her severe and controlling Mother-in-Law, played exceptionally well by Kristin Scott Thomas. When their village is occupied by the Germans they are forced to play host to a German Officer, but he is unlike the others. Lucile is a timid put upon girl who appears to meekly abide by what her Mother-in-Law decrees, but as the film gains momentum we see her true character assert itself. This is a tale of everyday people, trying to survive as the horror of war is raging around them. Very beautifully shot with a delicate soundtrack revolving around the piece of music written by the young German Officer. Once again you leave the cinema with the feeling of futility, and waste which come from watching stories about the war, but also in a peculiar way, I had the sense of having watched something very beautiful.

At the beginning of WWII, a young married woman (Williams) and her mother in law (Scott Thomas) living in a village close to Paris, are forced to take in their house a German officer from the occupying forces (Schoenaerts).

Scott Thomas is perfect as Madame Angellier, the icy mother in law with a twist. Williams and Schoenaerts are suitably reserved and understated as the star-crossed lovers. Sounds predictably tragic, but it is actually a very well made and interpreted movie. Also an engaging and believable love story, rather than a paint-by-number or a post-modern one.

The supporting cast is equally good, with a bunch of inhabitants - from the local gentry to the lowest peasants - in conflict with each other and foolishly thinking they can exploit the nasty German occupants to settle personal scores.

The melancholy of the story rings true, maybe because it is based on a novel written at the time of the events narrated. Definitely a refreshing experience in old-style storytelling – think "Casablanca", with slightly more gory details and less hope in the future of a beautiful friendship.

Suite Francaise is, for me, a rather sophisticated commentary on inequality and dispossession.

The characters in Suite Francaise are never to any measurable degree in control of their own fate. They are each controlled and constrained by social, economic and political prohibitions. In their own way each suffers a form of inequality of treatment, which leads to some form or other of dispossession.

For the lead characters, the young French wife and the German officer she comes to love, the most obvious inequality is their inability to form and sustain a loving relationship.They are constrained by political differences and social prejudices. Other characters experience dispossession as a result of a variety of factors such as class bias and racial discrimination. The loss in these cases, ranges from dispossession from property, through to deportation and death.

What is clear is the authors frustration and fury at the insanity of the world we live in. How so called civilizations and on a more local level individuals, demonstrate spitefulness and pettiness, (demonstrated by neighbours writing incriminating letters to the occupying German forces about one another) that prevent us all from leading free and happy lives.

This message is driven home all the more painfully and forcefully when you consider the tragic fate of the Jewish author, whose work this film is based upon. Sent to her death at a Nazi concentration camp simply for being Jewish.

The film adaption, derived from her incomplete series of books, is perhaps, a little stilted at times. This may in part be due to the fact the books were incomplete but possibly also due to the subtly of the message, which is not easily communicated in a ninety minute or so film.

In summary, Suite Francaise, is a thoughtful film. The compelling and heartfelt message which asks us all to practice kindness, understanding and tolerance when faced with its antithesis is as relevant in today's troubled times as ever it was. Eight out of ten from me.