The Heiresses (1980) User Reviews

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[moviesknight · 8/10 · 2 October 2021]

In our language there is a saying which translates to, "One without child has only 1 problem but the one with children has 100s".

Child completes a relation but it doesnot mean that our marriage isnt complete. Very sensitive topic handled eloquently. Wonderful acting, background score and pacing. How our one insecurity leads us to cascade of events and we lost even our own self. All she wants is a child, see if she gets it or loses everything instead.

The backdrop is WWII

[josephchan-goldstein · 8/10 · 22 September 2021]

Isabelle Huppert, as this film reveals, can also speak Hungarian. Never would I have thought she could speak that language, too, but there we are. Impressive actress. And, apparently well spoken in many different languages, including her well regarded French, and English, and I presume other languages not known to me at present.

She said something profound earlier in the film; if I paraphrase, it was something along the lines of, "dreams are better if they are not fulfilled." Ironically, this was the case in the unusual circumstance the characters found themselves in in this film: Szilvia, needed a surrogate, to bear a child (since she was infertile), to obtain her inheritance from her soon to be departed father. Enter, Irene (Isabelle Huppert), a Jewish girl to satsify her request... BUT, as soon as the "baby" entered the equation, this so called dream; this so called convenience to obtain Szilvia's rich father's estate, became incredibly complicated. As you would expect, emotions are rarely left aside. Especially when a baby, and a wandering husband; and an elegant Irene are standing across from you. Who wouldn't be intimidated by that? Perhaps it would have been better if this wasn't actualised... The plan sounded too good to be true; where one can only dream of it, and nothing more. Who knows?

Then we have the looming Holocaust ever present in the background. Along with this film being incredibly interesting, it did serve me well to empathise with what it may have been like at that time and place. Anyway.