Suite Française
Director: Saul Dibb
Starring: Michelle Williams, Kristin Scott Thomas, Margot Bobbie
107 mins; Class 15;
KRS Film Releasing
Suite Française is an involving World War II drama, depicting the clandestine romance between a young French woman Lucile Angellier (Michelle Williams), whose husband is fighting in the war, and a German officer, Bruno von Falk (Matthias Schoenaerts).
It is set in June 1940, in the fictional town of Bussy, a tranquil town experiencing unwelcome change.
As the Germans occupy the neighbouring French capital, many Parisian residents flee the city, arriving in Bussy simultaneously with an occupying German force which takes over the town, its officers placed in residence with the locals.
This is how Lucile and Bruno meet, the latter stationed at the house she shares with her severe mother-in-law Madame Angellier, a woman who hides neither her disdain for her daughter-in-law nor her absolute hatred of the Nazis.
While the Angelliers coldly get used to their house guest, the villagers also come to terms with the new situation they are faced with, the presence of the Germans bringing out the best in some people, and very much the worst in others.
Based on a novel by Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française captures the drama inherent with living during wartime, as a community of women, children and the elderly are left behind as the men are away fighting.
While director Saul Dibb and his team have recreated the scene perfectly, with the idyllic French village life sullied by the presence of the invaders signalling many dark days to come.
This is a character-driven story as the class differences between the Angelliers and those of their ilk on one side, and their tenant farmers and families on the other become, more stark while the whole neighbourhood is caught up in a cycle of treachery and betrayal, as the sense of community is overtaken by their survival instinct.
At the high end of the scale are village mayor, the Viscount Montmort (Lambert Wilson) and his wife, the Viscountess (Harriet Walter in a small but excellently portrayed role) who attempt to ensure their survival by ingratiating themselves with the German authorities. They learn the hard way that their new ‘friends’ do not necessarily repay fawning with favours.
The Montmorts tenant farmer Benoit (Sam Riley) fights his frustrations with the injuries that kept him away from combat, while his wife Madeleine (an ever-watchable Ruth Wilson) fights off the advances of a ruthless German officer Bennet (Tom Schilling).
It is these little private behaviours that soon lead to trouble, and ultimately tragedy, for the entire village.
Williams skilfully evokes the tension of the piece
As these dramatic scenes progress, we witness the blossoming relationship that unfolds chez Angellier. Michelle Williams is expressive as the lonely Lucile, a sad, repressed young woman forced to live an austere life under the shadow of her forbidding mother-in-law.
This is a woman unable even to play her beloved piano, therefore retreating further and further into her shell until her encounter with Bruno.
Yet, from thereon in, her budding feelings for him conflict wildly with the sense of duty and obligation she feels for her missing husband. The character also serves as narrator to the story and Williams adopts a solid British accent.
The character is at times a little too dour, yet for the most part Williams skilfully evokes the tension of the piece.
Belgian actor Schoenaerts continues his inexorable rise to world prominence with his feeling portrayal of the reluctant soldier Bruno.
After recent tough guy roles in Rust and Bone (2012) and The Drop (2014) the actor gets to show a little of his more tender side, a man torn between his loyalty to his superiors and the disillusionment at what they have come to represent; at heart a sympathetic artistic man.
His first connection with Lucille is their shared passion for the piano, with a beautiful piece written by film composer of the moment Alexandre Desplat serving as the soundtrack of their affair.
Kristin Scott Thomas makes an impact in her role as Mme Angellier, an unpleasant woman of little humour. Yet, the actress avoids the traps of making her a caricature, adding just the right amount of humanity to project the woman’s fears and vulnerabilities in such a time of uncertainty.
The story behind Suite Française’s source novel is equally fascinating.
Némirovsky died of typhus at Auschwitz in 1942, and her manuscripts were given to her daughter Denise Epstein.
Believing them to be her mother’s private diaries Epstein never read them until the 1990s. Realising they were in fact two novellas – with notes for more – Epstein took them to a publisher and they were published as one novel.
Suite Française has gone on to become one of France’s most popular novels of the last 10 years and one of its most successful literary exports; a bitter-sweet postscript for Némirovsky, who died aged only 39.