Fifty-two-year-old Philippe Claudel taught literature in the French prison system in Nancy while writing dark, award-winning novels before beginning his career as a film Writer/Director in 2008 with I’ve Loved You So Long. That BAFTA-winning film starred Kristen Scott Thomas (In the House, Salmon Fishing in the Yemon, The English Patient) as a lonely, fragile woman recently released from prison with a terrible secret.
In Claudel’s third film as Writer/Director, Before Winter (translated as Before the Winter Chill), Claudel is reunited with Scott Thomas, who plays Lucie, the devoted housewife of Paul (Daniel Auteuil), a wealthy, successful neurosurgeon.
Now 60 and complacent about his perfect life, Paul becomes dangerously embroiled in the lies of a predatory young waitress. Before the Winter Chill is based on an intriguing idea that is not as well developed as it could be, with unclear motivations and too many questions left unanswered. Its climax comes too late to provide the tension that the film is lacking.
Paul (Auteuil) is a busy surgeon preparing a young female doctor to replace him when he retires. We first see his wife, Lucie (Scott Thomas), entertaining a crowd for lunch in their sprawling garden that she cultivates and opens to the public. Their pristine, modern house above the sloped garden looks as expensive as it is and swallows up Lucie who seems to sit at home all day awaiting Paul’s return. Since their only son now has a family of his own, you wonder why they continue living in such a remote and enormous house.
When Paul stops off at his regular café one day for a coffee, an attractive young waitress tells him that she remembers him from when she had her appendix removed. Paul is taken aback. Not only does he not remember her, but, a neurosurgeon, he would not have removed an appendix since his internship, if then.
The girl, Lou, wants to see him again but he rebuffs her. Shortly after this unsettling encounter he receives bouquets of red roses, but cannot trace the sender. When Paul sees Lou at a concert, and then in his own practice, allegedly registering as a new patient of his psychiatrist partner, he is certain she is stalking him. One night he finds her on streets in a well known red light district and sits all night in the car talking to her.
Lucie, suspecting an affair, is distraught, and Paul acts as guilty as if he were sexually involved with Lou. When his preoccupation with Lou affects his work, he is sent home to rest. Despite all the danger signs, Paul pays Lucie a final visit where she gives him a tape of a song from her native country that might explain the red roses.
This is the basic plot. For no apparent reason Lucie has a mentally ill sister who threatens to stay with them before returning to the hospital. Their daughter-in-law suspects their son is having an affair; Paul’s colleague at work declares his love for Lucie, and Paul plays tennis as though he’s going to collapse. None of these occurrences or potential sub-plots amount to anything and it is difficult to relate them coherently to the story. Many will also wonder why Paul withholds so much information when he himself is aware that he is being stalked and angry about it. Is he intentionally trying to alienate Lucie or be stricken off the register just before retirement?
There is always, of course, the possibility that a workaholic like Paul might go off the rails and need to be flattered by the attentions of a sexually aggressive 20-year-old. But it is difficult to see why Paul would sustain a platonic relationship with someone as overbearing as Lou, or why he cannot see the danger signs through her lies. It does not help that there is no chemistry between Auteuil and actress Leila Bekhti, whose Lou lacks the mystery, charisma and seductiveness the role requires.
When, right at the end, the police finally unravel some of the mystery, our frustration does not subside as the scenario they describe makes no sense, particularly given the story we have followed. A tacked on happy ending leaves you feeling doubly cheated of what could have been a real cracker.
Joyce Glasser – MT film reviewer
