A grown-up French film -- for grown-ups and about them -- on the subject of coping with loss. The loss, in this case, of a thick, slow, tired husband (Bruno Cremer) who, after twenty-five years of marriage, goes out for a swim on a seaside holiday and doesn't return. The coming-attractions trailer was at some pains to give you the wrong idea of the film: to give you an idea of a thriller. It's true that the police come into it ("Did he have any personal or professional reasons for disappearing?"), and it's true that the forsaken wife, a lecturer on Virginia Woolf at the university, does a bit of amateur detective work when a visit to her doctor reveals that her husband had visited the doctor shortly before his disappearance. But the essential device, or gimmick, of the film is that the husband continues to be a visible presence (as it were) even in his absence. This doesn't qualify it as a ghost story à la Truly, Madly, Deeply, only as a romanticizing of mental aberration. For that, it can certainly be said to be cinematic -- as well as for relieving Charlotte Rampling of any thespian responsibility beyond looking good. At fifty-five, she more than holds up her end of the bargain. Written and directed by François Ozon. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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