IMDb > Damage (1992)
Damage
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Videos (see all 2)
Damage (1992) -- US Home Video Trailer from New Line Cinema
Damage (1992) -- kino-zeit.de - Trailer (Flash)

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Overview

User Rating:
6.7/10   4,949 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 9% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
David Hare (screenplay)
Josephine Hart (novel)
Contact:
View company contact information for Damage on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
22 January 1993 (USA) more
Genre:
Tagline:
With love comes risk. With obsession comes... Damage. more
Plot:
A member of Parliament (Irons) falls passionately in love with his son's fiancée. They pursue their... more | add synopsis
Awards:
Nominated for Oscar. Another 6 wins & 2 nominations more
User Comments:
Binoche is the ultimate home wrecker, and much more culpable than Irons more (69 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Jeremy Irons ... Dr. Stephen Fleming

Juliette Binoche ... Anna Barton

Miranda Richardson ... Ingrid Fleming
Rupert Graves ... Martyn Fleming
Ian Bannen ... Edward Lloyd

Peter Stormare ... Peter Wetzler
Gemma Clarke ... Sally Fleming
Julian Fellowes ... Donald Lyndsay, MP
Leslie Caron ... Elizabeth Prideaux
Tony Doyle ... Prime Minister
Ray Gravell ... Raymond (as Raymond Gravell)
Susan Engel ... Miss Snow

David Thewlis ... Detective

Benjamin Whitrow ... Civil Servant
Jeff Nuttall ... Trevor Leigh Davies MP
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Fatale (France)
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MPAA:
Rated R for strong sexuality, and for language. (edited version)
Runtime:
111 min
Country:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.66 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Filming Locations:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The Part of the Prime Minster's Aide was going to be played by Stephen Beard but shortly before filming he was replaced by Barry Stearn. more
Goofs:
Continuity: Early in the film when Stephen arrives home it is night. Yet once inside, when the maid draws the curtains, the garden outside is bathed in sunlight. more
Quotes:
Elizabeth Prideaux: You must understand, this is a wonderful chance for Anna to get a fresh start in life.
Dr. Stephen Fleming: I'm not sure I know what you mean.
Elizabeth Prideaux: Yes you do. I watched you at lunch. You didn't dare to look at her.
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FAQ

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19 out of 29 people found the following comment useful.
Binoche is the ultimate home wrecker, and much more culpable than Irons, 15 March 2001
Author: djexplorer from Manhattan

What I find interesting about the prior reviewer is that he could only comment upon the sleaziness of the Jeremy Irons characters. I fully expected to see that in most reviews. It is also most unbalanced, in the manner of the sex role ideologies of the 90's and the oughts.

For any not submerged in feminist victimization ideology, or an exaggerated gallantry, but who can view the situation with a modicum of gender neutrality, the Binoche character is far more culpable than the Irons character. She is no ingenue. Her character must be around 30, and a very worldly 30 plus at that (although she looks 35 plus) -- to his perhaps 45. She plots from moment one to seduce her boyfriend's father, not long after she has hooked up with the boyfriend. She does succeed soon enough, which does him no credit. But he believes she is just one more of a long line of his son's very temporary, and not particularly involved sexual relationships -- and he exudes an obviously sexual loneliness. The Irons and Binoche characters have a very torrid, and mildly S&M, relationship. All along he is obviously conflicted and very uncomfortable that she continue the relationship with both of them. Midway, he wants to leave his wife, make an honest (if marriage destroying) breast of it, and be with her alone. Binoche wants no such thing. She wants both father and son.

What is really maximally warped is Brioche's continued pursuit of the father after the son has proposed marriage, after she has accepted, and after Irons tells her with obvious anguish, but apparent sincerity, that he has decided that he has to break it off, and is breaking it off. It is not a mixed message. He even makes a non-revelatory, but symbolic and emotionally communicative visit to his son in his new, early achieved job as assistant political editor at a tony London newspaper. But Brioche relentlessly pursues him, and lures him back again -- while she is in the midst of planning the wedding.

Further, she spares not a single thought for his public career -- despite the fact that he is a British cabinet minister - or perhaps it is an assistant minister. (She works in a high end antiques establishment).

Sure, she has her troubled childhood history. But even there it isn't clear whether she is more victim, or manipulator. Certainly she was not the most ultimate victim earlier, either. As well, the Irons character, for all his public success, also obviously has emotional issues. They are familiar ones -- a reasonably pleasant, but passionless marriage, a midlife crisis, and a general sense, reflected by his children, that his greatest failing in life is not letting himself go more, not living with more passion. He at least makes some efforts to control himself, and to distance himself after her intentions to commit herself (at least publicly) to his son become clear -- while she does not -- at all.

He of course ends up far more damaged by her than the other way around. She it would seem entered damaged, and left with the pattern just more confirmed.

And yet as I expected, and have so far seen, the currently prevailing impulse is to almost exclusively blame the He -- regardless. Hogwash. Brioche is the ultimate home wrecker.

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Damage (1992)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Differences between the film and the novel (contains *spoilers*) septimus77
Juliette Binoche walks off set godisthyname
Josephine's other novel 'Sin'. blondepittbull
Juliette Binoche's costumes paulkindersley-1
The ending of the film. mikema74
did Anna...(spoilers) rnw_06
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