Gabrielle (2005)

Director:

Patrice Chéreau

Writers:

Patrice Chéreau (written by) &
Anne-Louise Trividic (written by) ...

Release Date:

9 September 2005 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

The marriage between Gabrielle and Jean begins to fray after the discovery of a letter that belongs to Gabrielle.

Plot Keywords:

Love | Letter | Marriage | Broken Glass | Wine

Awards:

3 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Isabelle Huppert	...	Gabrielle Hervey
Pascal Greggory	...	Jean Hervey
Claudia Coli	...	Yvonne
Thierry Hancisse	...	The Editor-in-Chief
Chantal Neuwirth	...	Madeleine
Thierry Fortineau	...	Guest
Louise Vincent	...	Guest
Clément Hervieu-Léger	...	Guest
Nicolas Moreau	...	Guest
Rinaldo Rocco	...	The Consul
Xavier Lafitte	...	Guest
Maï David	...	Maid
Jeanne Herry	...	Maid
Aude Léger	...	Maid
Raina Kabaivanska	...	La cantatrice

Also Known As:

Gabrielle - Liebe meines Lebens (Germany)
Trois soirées (France) (working title)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

France | Italy | Germany

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White | Color (Fujicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Belgium:KT | Germany:12 | Netherlands:12 | UK:15 | Australia:M

Company:

Azor Films

A pretentious and stultifying waste of time

Gabrielle has fine actors, beautiful camera work and features a detailed look at upper crust French parlor society in the early 1900s. It is also one of the more boring and stifling pictures we've seen in a long time. Huppert is a great actress but she is wasted here. If the director was going to do a Conrad adaptation, the original story needed to be better converted for cinema because it just didn't work. There was incessant, drone-on talking which went nowhere. There was little or no character development. Overall the 90 minute movie felt like three and a half hours, for no payoff. The ending was just truncated and very unsatisfying.