This is a huge misfire by a great director. In fact, I have seen many, many Malle films and have given four of them 10s, two 9s, and an 8. That's a great average now brought down considerably by the 5 I'm giving this film.
And, truth be told, it isn't a bad film. It's just uneventful. A movie about a man who falls in love with his son's fiancee just isn't all that shocking, at least in the movies. It might have worked if the characters were better developed. Anna (Juliette Binoche) is given a compelling background story, but it is not well used by the script, the direction, or the actress. And it pains me to say so, because I am in LOVE with Juliette Binoche. Stephen, the main character, played by Jeremy Irons, is even less well off. We learn nothing at all about him. His lust comes about almost immediate (which isn't hard to understand: we're talking about BINOCHE here), but we are not given any real reason to believe that he would so quickly betray his son and his wife. Martyn (Rupert Graves) is the cuckolded son. He has a nice speech about the disappointments he had as a rich child, but that isn't enough to give his character any weight. Slightly better off is Miranda Richardson as Ingrid, Stephen's bored wife. She plays her upper class fears well as she has to deal with the newcomer Anna, who seems suspicious to her. She also has a good scene at the end when she confronts her husband. The one character whom I did find interesting is Sally, the teenage daughter. Through the film, she silently develops and loses a relationship with a boy. It is almost a parody of the seriousness of the two older men's relationship with Anna. We see Sally and her new boyfriend several times together, but he always has headphones on and they never talk to each other (the adults never seem to talk to their lovers, either).
Surely, if some more tension had been injected into the mix, or just anything else to get the audience to think about something, it could have been good. As it is, it's a dud. Instead, see some of its precursors: especially Last Tango in Paris, which is the kind of movie that can draw you in. I'd even suggest these two exploitation flicks as alternatives: In the Realm of the Senses (Japanese: Ai no corrida) and The Night Porter (which I think is either a French or Italian film, but I happened to have seen it dubbed into English). Those films have the ability to entertain you a little, unlike Damage.
And, truth be told, it isn't a bad film. It's just uneventful. A movie about a man who falls in love with his son's fiancee just isn't all that shocking, at least in the movies. It might have worked if the characters were better developed. Anna (Juliette Binoche) is given a compelling background story, but it is not well used by the script, the direction, or the actress. And it pains me to say so, because I am in LOVE with Juliette Binoche. Stephen, the main character, played by Jeremy Irons, is even less well off. We learn nothing at all about him. His lust comes about almost immediate (which isn't hard to understand: we're talking about BINOCHE here), but we are not given any real reason to believe that he would so quickly betray his son and his wife. Martyn (Rupert Graves) is the cuckolded son. He has a nice speech about the disappointments he had as a rich child, but that isn't enough to give his character any weight. Slightly better off is Miranda Richardson as Ingrid, Stephen's bored wife. She plays her upper class fears well as she has to deal with the newcomer Anna, who seems suspicious to her. She also has a good scene at the end when she confronts her husband. The one character whom I did find interesting is Sally, the teenage daughter. Through the film, she silently develops and loses a relationship with a boy. It is almost a parody of the seriousness of the two older men's relationship with Anna. We see Sally and her new boyfriend several times together, but he always has headphones on and they never talk to each other (the adults never seem to talk to their lovers, either).
Surely, if some more tension had been injected into the mix, or just anything else to get the audience to think about something, it could have been good. As it is, it's a dud. Instead, see some of its precursors: especially Last Tango in Paris, which is the kind of movie that can draw you in. I'd even suggest these two exploitation flicks as alternatives: In the Realm of the Senses (Japanese: Ai no corrida) and The Night Porter (which I think is either a French or Italian film, but I happened to have seen it dubbed into English). Those films have the ability to entertain you a little, unlike Damage.