Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Betty Blu-ray Movie Review

Femme blanche seule.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 21, 2017

Note: This film is available as part of 3 Classic Films by Claude Chabrol.

That famously French laissez faire attitude toward interrelationships, often but not always with regard to marriage, gets a rather surprising workout in the trio of offerings on tap in 3 Classic Films by Claude Chabrol. As I’ve discussed in some previous reviews of Chabrol’s work, Chabrol has often seemed a little like a square peg attempting to fit into round holes, at least as defined by others. He never totally conformed to at least some of the nascent ideas of the nouvelle vague despite often being branded as a fellow traveler with the likes of Godard and Truffaut. Similarly, while Chabrol has often been compared at least in passing to Alfred Hitchcock, and while many of Chabrol’s films at least skirt with thriller or mystery elements, and many of them display the same kind of rationalist approach to often troubling psychological elements that Hitch’s films can, there are nonetheless very few set pieces in Chabrol films that match the sheer technical audacity that is on display in some of Hitchcock’s best remembered work. Two of the three films in this set play at least tangentially off of various dysfunctions in married relationships, while the third, The Swindle (original French title Rien ne va plus), rather cheekily refuses to overtly specify what kind of relationship its focal pair has with each other, at least in terms of personal intimacy. All three films have elements of suspense, but as with many of Chabrol’s films, the emphasis isn’t necessarily on a central mystery but rather how characters respond to irrational elements, either in their own psyches or impinging on them from external sources.

Kind of interestingly, Betty shares its production year with Single White Female, a film which posited a seemingly normal roommate slowly but surely taking over the life of another. While it’s obvious from the get go that Betty (Marie Trintignant) is anything but normal, Betty plies at least some of the same territory as Single White Female after Betty’s obvious emotional imbalance causes Laure (Stéphane Audran) to take the dissheveled younger woman in. Betty is based on a work of Georges Simenon, the prolific Belgian author whom armchair sleuths will know from Maigret. There’s not any kind of a “whodunit” ambience at play here, though, and instead the film seeks to peel back psychological layers as it details the perilous relationship between Betty and Laure.

Chabrol structures the film in a kind of fractured way, at least in the early going, joining the story in medias res and then shoehorning in sometimes very brief flashbacks to depict the series of events which has brought Betty to the precipice of a potential nervous breakdown. It’s obvious virtually immediately that Betty has a pretty severe drinking problem, and Chabrol’s emphasis on memory suddenly intruding, while unavoidably an interrupting force on the through line of the contemporary narrative, helps to establish the wobbly tenor of Betty’s inner life.

Betty’s alcoholism is actually just one example of substance abuse that wafts through the film. In fact the character who acts as a taxi driver of sorts and delivers Betty to the club where she ends up meeting Laure is himself an addict, as becomes apparent when he wants to excise “worms” from Betty’s hand, in a scene that might have been as at home in Naked Lunch as it is in this film. Laure and club owner Mario (Jean-François Garreaud) rescue her from that predicament, but can’t keep her from devolving into a puddle of tears, which is when Laure, also prone to imbibing pretty spectacularly, steps up to offer a place to sleep it off for a while.

There’s a bit of an almost literary subtext at play in Betty at times, with (to cite just one example) the club being named The Hole, filled with purgatorial types that might remind some of another Frenchman’s account of characters lost in a metaphysical pit of despair, Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. Unlike traditional American thrillers like the aforementioned Single White Female, the eventual skirmishes between Betty and Laure (which of course ultimately involve Mario) aren’t played for thrills or even typical angst, and instead are spun out in sometimes rather lengthy dialogue scenes where the “chat” seems to be about the mundane vagaries of fate, but which are loaded with emotional ramifications. All of this plays out against the slowly detailed revelations about Betty’s troubled past (which is where attitudes about marriage enter the fray), where it eventually becomes apparent that Betty is probably not the helpless victim she appears to be.

Betty may disappoint those wanting a clear, forward moving narrative, but the film provides excellent showcases for its two female leads. The talkiness of the enterprise introduces a certain emotional distance from the proceedings, something that may further alienate it from some viewers, but for those interested to see how Chabrol can build a film out of relatively few elements, Betty is a fascinating intellectual exercise.

Betty Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Betty is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. While there's nothing drastically problematic here, and indeed much of the transfer looks very nice, this is overall the least pleasing looking of the three films in this set. Colors aren't especially vivid, and in some dark scenes tend to almost approach monochromatic status. As with the two other films in this set, grain is occasionally ungainly, clumping a bit, especially when there are dark elements in the frame, as in black suit jackets and the like. Detail levels are generally very good, especially in the close-ups that Chabrol repeatedly utilizes. There's a nice organic quality to the presentation despite these probably niggling qualms, and other than slight wobble during the credits there aren't any image instability issues.

Betty Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Betty features an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 track in the original French, with nonremovable English subtitles. As with all of the films in this set, the track more than capably supports the long dialogue sequences, while also offering a problem free presentation of Matthieu Chabrol's typically anachronistic score. Occasional scenes in The Hole, as well as a flashback in another crowded restaurant, provide a bit of hustle and bustle, but this is generally a fairly reserved track that gets the job done without much "wow" factor.

Betty Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:34)

Betty Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're a Chabrol fan, there's a lot to unpack in Betty, despite a curiously calm surface demeanor. That said, this is an awfully talky film that traffics in psychological turmoil from a weird kind of distance, and those unaccustomed to Chabrol's sometimes languid pace may find the other two films in this set more immediately accessible. Performances are top notch in any case, and with generally fine technical merits, Betty comes Recommended.