The Pundit

Un Couple Parfait

By Glen Hancox ⋅ August 7, 2006 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Considered a model couple by their friends, Nicholas (Bruno Todeschini) and Marie (Val‚àöÔø?ria Bruni-Tedeschi) return to Paris for a wedding and smilingly announce their separation at the pre-wedding dinner. From that moment, the impending split becomes reality and the couple begin to ponder the significance of their decision.

This film is slow, painfully slow. A number of people left the theatre before the end and there was an audible sigh of relief when the film finished. The scenes are long and punctuated by lengthy silences. Camera shots are static and the lighting is dim, casting the actors in shadow. Often they are not even in shot. At one point we watch a closed door as Marie carries out a one-way conversation.

Although the couple try to trivialise the separation, to themselves and to their friends, their feelings and fears are evident. Much of the battle is waged internally and portrayed in body language. Marie seeks solace in a museum and Nicholas in a late night cafe. Both meet single people and get a glimpse into life after marriage, but these scenes do not develop.

Un Couple Parfait is not so much a story as a naturalistic observation of a couple’s failing relationship. We get the point early on and then it just becomes laboured. The couple don’t talk about their issues and problems or what led them to their decision to separate. In fact, they hardly talk at all. There is a sense of the emotion simmering beneath the initial veneer of normality, but it lacks the substance and layers of The Squid and the Whale or Hidden. Ultimately, you feel nothing for the characters.

Todeschini and Bruni-Tedeschi give convincing performances. Most of the focus is on Marie, whose pain generates anger, regret and sadness and she goads Nicholas, looking for answers. From him we mostly get a sullen silence’that’s when you can see him at all.