Credited cast: | |||
Jonathan Rhys Meyers | ... | Solal | |
Natalia Vodianova | ... | Ariane | |
Ed Stoppard | ... | Adrien / Husband | |
Marianne Faithfull | ... | Mariette | |
Maria Bonnevie | ... | Isolde | |
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Janine Horsburgh | ... | Mrs. Deume |
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Leslie Woodhall | ... | Mr. Deume |
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Jimmy de Brabant | ... | Sir John |
Stefan Weinert | ... | Van Vries | |
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Gilbert Johnston | ... | Huxley |
Claire Johnston | ... | Huxley's wife | |
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André Arend van de Noord | ... | Dietsch (as Andre van Noord) |
Paulo dos Santos | ... | Peruvian delegate | |
Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
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Casimiro Fernandes | ... | Party guest |
Alex Freeman | ... | Danish Delegate |
In Geneva in the 1930s; Solal and Ariane meets at a party. Their lives differ as day and night. Ariane is a young married aristocrate from a Protestant family from Geneva. Solal is a Jewish diplomat who rises from nothing to the second highest position in the League of Nations on the eve of the Second World War. Ariane is none other than the wife of his subordinate, Adrien. But they are carried away by their fervent love and must not only undergo the hostility of the rest of the world but also deal with their own problems. Solal is plagued by obsessive love and Ariane is swept away by a passionate and physical love. And Solal hides a dark part of his personality. But their love is based on fundamental understanding. He loves the thought of Ariane, she loves the reality of Solal.
The film is unfortunately a deceptive adaptation of this great and complicate XXth century love story novel by Albert Cohen. Some women friends of mine commented, it's pretty unconceivable to understand how a male writer could so well understand and describe and write (about) woman's psychology, woman's inside.
I loved the book a lot but not the film, pretty poor. I like Meyers as an actor but here, imho, he looks too young (he was 35 then) as Solal, even if Solal had a vertiginous social climb.
At about 31 minutes into the film, we can see a very nice wood house at the Geneva lake. I knew the (unnice) owners so I went there once or twice. For the ones interested, you can see it in Promenthoux at 46.391986° 6.267007° in Google Maps.