Dazzled by her performance in the ultra-stylish Thriller Love Crime,I decided to keep a look out for other films starring Kristin Scott Thomas (KST!) Taking a look at BBC iPlayer,I was thrilled to spot a Thomas film about to be taken from the site,which led to me leaving for a viewing.The plot:Despite having the "perfect" bourgeois lifestyle, Suzanne finds herself to be emotionally unfulfilled. Getting her husband Samuel to put a room in his office, Suzanne begins showing round for a builder. Crossing paths with former prisoner Ivan,Suzanne is taken by his rugged looks and begins to have an affair with Ivan. Pushed to confess the affair to Samuel,Suzanne finds herself having to decide if she wants to stay with Ivan or stay with her bourgeois lifestyle.View on the film:Presenting a stripped-down affair,co-writer/(along with Gaëlle Macé/Antoine Jaccoud & Emmanuelle Bernheim) director Catherine Corsini and cinematographer Agnès Godard stab the violent passion Suzanne and Ivan have for each other with razor-sharp editing giving the sex scenes a heated atmosphere. Placing Suzanne's against an unfulfilled backdrop, Corsini completely drains the film of colour,with the washed out, bleached appearance reflecting Suzanne's feelings.Despite the "rich housewife falls for builder" sounding like the outline of an "Adult" movie,the screenplay by Corsini/Macé/Jaccoud and Bernheim break the hollow bourgeois with an earthy Drama of Suzanne and Ivan try in desperation to hold onto their blue-collar threads,as Samuel turns the screws on Suzanne for rejecting the bourgeois lifestyle. Joined by a humble Sergi López as Ivan and a greasy Samuel, Kristin Scott Thomas gives an impeccable performance as Suzanne,by Thomas getting under the brittle nails on Suzanne discovering what matters to her when her bourgeois gifts leave.

Basically this movie is about an adulteress who has forgotten about the covenant she made with her husband and lusts after another man. The husband like any good husband is jealous to see his wife in the arms of another man and makes life hard for the adulteress and her fornicator. Others saw the husband's actions as callous, however, I view the husband's actions as those which come out of jealousy. I thought the acting was very good with Kristin Scott Thomas doing an exceptional job as the wife committing adultery. I tended to sympathize with the husband in this movie as which husband can just sit back and allow his wife to be in another man's arms. That God given jealousy was evident in this movie and I think that all husbands' whose wives have cheated on them can sympathize with the message of this movie. JNR

The upper middle-class lady meets worker and a passionate affair takes place. That's not an uncommon theme in our hemisphere, but it's very easy to parodize. Not at least when it's taken so seriously as here.Of course the subject is a serious one, like all love stories are, both on film and in reality. But on film the rules are fairly known. We are aware of the signs, we expect a certain plot and certain things to happen and I'm sorry to say that this film doesn't make us disappointed, Or perhaps that's exactly what we are supposed to be and also are.Don't give us another southern French passion story, until the genre is renewed.

Kristin Scott-Thomas is an accomplished actor, but she cannot save this desperate concatenation of clichés - unhappy housewife with two children, boring (and apparently misogynistic) husband, swarthy, sexy Latin lover, etc. Her character, Suzanne, elicits little or no sympathy, only bewilderment and contempt, and her husband, Samuel, seems much too good for her. The sex scenes between her and Ivan were risible. Ms. Corsini might have intended for the film to have a narrative and a them or themes, but it was impossible to detect any. If Ms. Corsini had any "punches to throw," she pulled them. Some of the scenery, however, was well-photographed, so at least Agnès Godard comes away with some credit.