Partir (Leaving)

dir. Catherine Corsini
France, 2009

Kristin Scott Thomas in impressive form as a bored bourgeois wife to a doctor husband who is the sort of man who thinks of his wife as part of a portfolio of what makes him a successful/upstanding/etc man who has an impulsive affair with a Catalan builder, which soon turns into more: they fall in love and she leaves her increasingly odd/threatening/violent husband, which in turn leads him to increasingly baroque forms of punishment/attempts to get her to come home, including getting his friend the mayor to arrest the builder...

Particularly impressive in Scott Thomas's performance are the moments when she's alone, in a park or in her car, where she giggles or smiles to herself, the excitement and naughtiness of her affair making her appear as a teenager...

The tension ratchets up (despite, as the Guardian pointed out, the film begins and ends with a bang of a gun, though to be fair we hear and don't see who the shot is aimed at) to the point where we see who gets shot...

Rather a good companion piece to the very good I've Loved You So Long, with Kristin Scott Thomas again given the sort of well-written role she wouldn't get in the UK or Hollywood. Some have thought this film more emotionally raw than I've Loved You... but I'm not sure. This
is perhaps less hard-hitting for being stretched across the whole film, whereas I've Loved You...'s emotional hit comes right at the end.