Damage (1992)

..have watched this film couple-three times through the years.. and really do very much like all the actors involved.. but it's a clear and simple case of an over exaggerated script and similar direction.. in real life, unless you're mentally incapacitated, you know there are actual consequences to your actions, yet here you have two seemingly highly intelligent individuals blowing up their entire lives, and those of loved ones around them, all for a totally unworkable relationship.. and then one of the final scenes ices it.. the two of them flailing around in bed like no other on-screen couple you've seen before or since.. really, had they just toned it down a notch or two overall.. it would have come off sooo much better..

Dr. Stephen Fleming (Jeremy Irons) is a British cabinet minister living with his wife Ingrid (Miranda Richardson) and young daughter Sally. He meets Anna Barton (Juliette Binoche) who introduces herself as his son Martyn's girlfriend. He endangers his stuffy upper class existence with an obsessive affair with Anna.This is a compelling movie because of the chemistry between Binoche and Irons. The plot is thin but this is about the performance of the two leads. They have an obsessive abandon about them. They give great out-of-control desperation. Binoche gives herself over reminiscent of 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' and Irons is like a man addicted.

The title here is like a punchline to a joke. In a near two hour film, we have an exceptionally slow plodding story, as if somehow the horrible tragedy near it's end, pays off, which it does on a first view. We feel the whole of this told film in a necessity up to that point. And lets be honest, watching the nubile Irons and Binoche, get it on, we almost wish a re run of the seamy scenes in Basic Instinct, replaced it. There is no eroticism, or chemistry, whatsoever. However I can't say I hated the film. It least does have some humping, whatever, one scene in particular has Binoche covering Iron's eye, while like skyward, dreamily. Irons works as a minister in Parliament, whatever, has a loving and supportive wife, the great Miranda Richardson, the acting stealer here. He lives in riches, has a beautiful teen daughter, a little rebellious sort, and a successful son (Rupert Graves) great too, who works for a paper and who's fiancée', is fatally Binoche. So we, know some sort of Damage is gonna eventuate. For men, cheating is almost second nature. Personally I think Irons character is such an idiot, in part he gets what he deserves at the end of this movie, though you do feel a tad sorry for him. I think Richardson is far sexier than Binoche, but we all know opinions tend to very. This drama, actually a class about it, as in it's slow pacing, where we other family, in one scene Binoche's ex, played by Peter Stormare, in an unusually calm role. What damage does at the end though, leaves you with an afterthought, about the consequences of cheating, where losing the ones we love, comes at a much heavier price. The title artistry is great, with each letter fading onto the screen, of course, in slow succession.

In Damage, Louis Malle takes the standard tale of infidelity and plays it in a more unique way than we've seen before. That is to say, he keeps all of the emotions bottled up and close to the chest. Adapted by David Hare, from a novel by Josephine Hart, it tells the story of a Parliament member (Jeremy Irons) who falls deeply in love with his son's fiancée (Juliette Binoche) and carries on an affair with her. The set up is standard, but the approach is what sets this apart. A few years earlier, Adrian Lyne brought us the intense and high-drama extreme of infidelity Fatal Attraction, and here Malle brings us the opposition. It's all stolen glances, closeted emotions and passion that comes out only in the bedroom.For the longest time it seemed like it wasn't doing much new, but the rigidness of it all is such a great contrast to the passion in the sexual scenes. Those scenes felt dangerous, erotic and exciting, while the rest of it was appropriately closeted as a result. Irons slipped into the skin of his character so well, making you see him as this guy who had been so passionless his whole life but finally found something worth feeling for. It's a hauntingly apt portrayal of sexual obsession. The first meeting between Irons and Binoche is brilliantly executed; in the first touch between them you can see in him that this is something that has changed his life completely. It's all very close to the chest and the way Malle constructs it is so brilliantly understated, which I felt added even more emotional pull to it.A lot of people could complain about the characters being thin, but I felt that they couldn't have been any more detailed; it's all there if you're looking closely. In their conversations, their looks, they reveal all of the things that don't come out on the surface. This is the kind of film that doesn't waste a word. Juliette Binoche was incredible, playing something quite unique than what I've come to expect from her, almost an antagonist in a lot of ways. Binoche has made a career out of portraying more on the inside than she displays on the outside, and this is taking that skill of her's to an extreme. Her character is haunted by her past, motivated by so much but revealing so little. It's that mystery that makes her so compelling, so frightening yet simultaneously alluring.The final act raises things to an even more impressive, disturbing level. Miranda Richardson has a big scene near the end that is sure to resonate with any viewer. It's hard to think of many scenes that were as hard to watch as that one. There's so much hate, anguish and devastation in her. She took that character to such an emotional extreme, yet somehow was able to keep it from feeling even slightly melodramatic. It all boils down to a conclusion that is devastating, powerful and absolutely haunting, aided by an operatic score.