Damage (1992)

Director:

Louis Malle

Writers:

David Hare (screenplay)
Josephine Hart (novel)

Release Date:

22 January 1993 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

With love comes risk. With obsession comes... Damage.

Plot:

A member of Parliament (Irons) falls passionately in love with his son's fiancée. They pursue their...

Plot Keywords:

Member Of Parliament | Parliament | Fall | Love | Leg Spreading

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 6 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

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

Also Known As:

Fatale (France)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong sexuality, and for language. (edited version)

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

UK | France

Language:

English | French | German | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:12 (original rating) | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Netherlands:12 | Portugal:M/16 | New Zealand:R | Argentina:18 | Australia:R | Brazil:18 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:III | South Korea:(Banned) (1992-1994) | South Korea:18 (re-rating) (cut) | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:NC-17 (original rating) | USA:R | Canada:16+ (Quebec) | Canada:R (Manitoba/Ontario) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia)

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Company:

Nouvelles Éditions de Films (NEF)

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.

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.

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.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Miranda Richardson/Soul Asylum (#18.16)" (1993)

Binoche is the ultimate home wrecker, and much more culpable than Irons

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.