La Fille Coupée en Deux (The Girl Cut in Two) (A Girl Cut in Two) poster & wallpaper

Benoît Magimel, Caroline Sihol, François Berléand

Gabrielle Deneige is an independent, ambitious TV weather girl torn between her love of a distinguished author several decades her senior and the attentions of a headstrong, potentially unstable young...( read more  read more... ) suitor. An unspoken past between the two men heightens tensions, and though she's initially certain of her love for one of them, the see-saw demands and whims of both men keep confusing--and darkening--matters. Before long she's encountering emotional and societal forces well beyond her control, inexorably leading to a shocking clash of violence and passion.

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37% liked it

693 ratings

Critics

74% liked it

76 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 55 min.

Directed by: Claude Chabrol

Release Date: August 14, 2008

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Flixster Reviews (228)

  • EarthlyAlien
    November 6, 2009
    EarthlyAlien
    Gabrielle: "What do you do for a living?
    Paul: I live."

    Some filmmakers, like Chaplin and Kubrick, determined that they should release a film only every few years, to make it more like an event to be anticipated. Others work faster and harder in an effort not to be...( read more) forgotten, like Spike Lee or Woody Allen. It's difficult to determine which method is more effective, but it seems like if a filmmaker turns in over fifty films of mostly high quality, their work is eventually taken for granted. Everyone loves Hitchcock now, but in 1976 when his final film opened, he must have seemed like a relic compared to Rocky and Taxi Driver.

    Photobucket

    That's how I imagine Claude Chabrol today. Now 78, he releases a film a year, more or less, and passed the fifty-film marker some time ago. Unlike his Nouvelle Vague colleagues, he didn't make a recognizable "masterpiece" in his youth, a film that anyone can quote out of their heads as essential to the movement, and so has nothing to live up to. Rather, he's consistently reliable and skillful, and it's difficult to judge any one of his films up against another. Look through reviews of his most recent films, and for each one you'll find at least one person claiming it's his best film in years.

    And so comes A Girl Cut in Two. I loved it. It's another superbly-made, highly enjoyable Chabrol film, but you probably won't see it on any top ten lists, nor will Chabrol be collecting any awards for it. I think "consistent" is a bad word among film people; we're more easily impressed by change and diversity, or by the newest, latest thing. Actors like John Wayne were routinely overlooked in favour of the Brandos and the James Deans, though Brando could never in a million years have pulled off what John Wayne accomplished in The Searchers. Brando could do lots of things, but John Wayne was the best at being John Wayne. That's my standard rant, and that's how I feel about Chabrol. Now, onto the film:

    Co-written by Cécile Maistre, Chabrol's frequent assistant director, A Girl Cut in Two tells the story of a love triangle. A beautiful, ambitious TV weather girl, Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier, in her most full-bodied performance yet), falls for the much older, but successful, married writer Charles Saint-Denis (François Berléand, Inspector Tarconi on the Transporter films). It's an interesting game of seduction, as both players appear to be out-scheming one another. Gabrielle comes on to him at a book signing. When he takes her to his empty city apartment (away from his country house), she's fully aware of his intentions, and she lets him get away with it. Later, he turns the tables by brushing her off, even though she seems truly smitten with him. However, at work Gabrielle knows just how to pull the strings to get herself advanced to a better job, even if it means stepping on a few people who are in the way.

    At the same time, a snotty, rich younger man, Paul (Benoît Magimel, Haneke's La Pianiste) is swept away by Gabrielle and even more intrigued by her indifference to him. His usual method of throwing money around doesn't seem to work on her. She can see right through him; he behaves like a genuine twit with his family, and he openly hates Charles. Because Charles is devoted to his wife, Gabrielle gives up and gives in to Paul, even agreeing to marry him. She grants Charles one chance to leave his wife and stop the wedding. From there, I won't say any more since the film doesn't quite go where you would expect. What Chabrol does here that's so remarkable is to establish a light tone, almost a black comedy, for the film's first two thirds, and then effortlessly switches to his creeping dread tone for the final stretch, without leaving anyone or anything behind. There's no sense of betrayal in this switch, because it feels like absolutely the right thing to do. Best of all is the ending, which wraps up all the film's chord changes in one big crescendo.

    Chabrol is a master at dead ends, at setting up peculiar situations that may or may not go anywhere. For example, Charles loves his wife, but he flirts with his sexy publicist Capucine Jamet (the eye-popping Mathilda May, best known for playing the naked alien in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce). Gabrielle allows her boss at the TV station to flirt with her and call her pet names, while Paul, who is slightly effeminate anyway, has a kind of male companion at his side; this person seems like more of an employee than a friend, someone to clean up after him. In a lesser film, these supporting characters would be dressing, but here they serve to render things a bit more off-kilter. This rich detail serves to complicate the love triangle, placing its multi-faceted participants on relatively even ground, and keeping them on their toes. As a result, A Girl Cut in Two keeps us on our toes as well.
  • ebs90
    June 8, 2009
    ebs90
    A thriller inspired by the infamous, murderous New York love triangle between Evelyn Nesbit, Harry Thaw and Stanford White. The story takes place in modern-day France: Ludivine Saigner plays the lead, a lovely weather girl, Francois Berleand is the famous, aging writer who begins...( read more) an affair with her, and Benoit Magimel is the psychologically unstable -young-millionaire who wants to marry her.
    These superbly-written and overall unpleasant characters drift between the evil and the ingenue with slyness. Selfishness and immorality abound, everyone takes advantage of everyone, and approches everyone for reasons very different from love. So all in all, as I watched, I knew all three characters were bound for something tragic.

    Chabrol is a skilled, competent filmmaker, and his film never falls flat, never bores, it keeps a steady pace and a consistent veil of suspense and uncertainty. To put it simply, it is a regular Hitchcock, with less censorship limitations.

    While it isn't an extraordinary film it is a good thriller with some black comedy moments. And what's best, it is a non-cop thriller; therefore it has less opportunities to be commonplace, and less pressure put on a typical police figure. All the interaction within La fille coupée... takes place in a very (un)civic and unlawful context in which unbridled sexual and emotional promiscuity thrives, not just between the members of the "love" triangle but between them and their immediate surroundings. Everyone in this film very much wants to be uncompromisingly seduced and is more than willing to dispose after using.

    So, there's not much left to say... a thriller about bad things that happen to people of questionable morale (there are no bad guys here!)
  • wbgoose13
    October 26, 2008
    wbgoose13
    French dark comedy/light thriller takes its time before going off in unexpected directions that bring multiple meanings to that title.
  • lovablemisanthrope
    November 17, 2008
    lovablemisanthrope
    Great plot, but I think it could have been executed better.
  • jallyjay
    September 20, 2009
    jallyjay
    cute girl... a romantic movie, or a drama, if i get to the point ...something booring
  • Phonex
    March 7, 2009
    Phonex
    Abut Magimel against the eyes wide shut-ness of Sagnier, who is drawn to fame and money as sweetly as anyone desiring happiness material and loving, and we start to see Chabrol's method, a story of social masks at once archetypal, subtle, and exaggerated to an extreme. Indeed, th...( read more)e ending would make Michael Powell and Antonioini proud, a splendorous explosion of artful decor and magic, caught in the bind of The Lady Without Camelias, the de-masked, previously innocent beautiful girl putting the mask back on, but a mask of such degraded quality that it cannot disguise the recognition and unhappiness of the way society works. All of which is to say that yes, Chabrol has done it again, and it is great.
  • xxxcli213xxx
    December 15, 2008
    xxxcli213xxx
    no thanks not my thing
  • Protenor
    November 17, 2008
    Protenor
    I am not sure how I am supposed to find a movie like this; all the main characters seem kind of sick in their decision-making and at first this looked like some sort of old man's sexual fantasy, though I understood that this wasn't the point to be made as I watched further. It tu...( read more)rned out to be a rather straight storyline after all, but still I would appreciate someone slapping me on the back now, assuring me that the world isn't like it's pictured in this movie. It would make me feel better though I'd probably fail to believe it all the same. A good movie that you won't like.
  • daniel9x
    October 20, 2008
    daniel9x
    There were some great moments in this movie but unfortunately it suffered some not so great ones as well.

View All La Fille Coupée en Deux (The Girl Cut in Two) (A Girl Cut in Two) Reviews

Critic Reviews

October 2, 2008
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Chabrol is a past master at visual storytelling and a stiletto wit. full review

September 18, 2008
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

A cool study of erotic longing, misguided love and class warfare in the civilized spheres of French society, Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two, despite its high melodrama and wicked humor, delivers a... full review

September 12, 2008
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Along the way, a powerful spectacle unfolds with serious class and feminist implications. full review

September 12, 2008
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Notice how nimbly Chabrol glides through his establishing scenes, and how adroitly he introduces other characters. full review

August 18, 2008
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

Never more than semi-plausible. full review

View more La Fille Coupée en Deux (The Girl Cut in Two) (A Girl Cut in Two) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

  • dhuber03
    October 28, 2008
    dhuber03
    Found this film on a top 20 movie poster list!
    http://coffeeandcelluloid.com/2008/10/26/20-amazing-movie-posters/
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