Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Nathalie... Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 17, 2022

Nathalie. . . seems to want to be a kind of psychosexual thriller that might have attained considerable energy under the direction of someone like Henri-Georges Clouzot or Claude Chabrol, though this is most definitely a post-modern enterprise wherein a quasi ménage à trois situation has both heterosexual and homosexual elements once the already titillating plot really kicks into motion. Catherine (Fanny Ardant) is an incredibly well put together middle aged woman who is a successful gynecologist but who discovers after a botched try at a surprise birthday party for him that her husband Bernard (Gérard Depardieu) may have been cheating on her. Attempting to reassert her own version of control over the situation, Catherine hires a prostitute named Marlène (Emmanuelle Béart) to play the part of a woman named Nathalie and to seduce Bernard and keep Catherine posted on what ensues. This already provocative premise gets more salacious when Nathalie is not only happy to oblige, but turns out to be rather, well, descriptive in her meetings with Catherine where she relates her sexual adventures with Bernard. It's a plot setup virtually roiling with all sorts of inner drama and motivations, but despite some winning performances, there's surprisingly little energy here, and perhaps by design, virtually no suspense whatsoever, despite a valiant attempt to deliver yet another "mind blowing twist" toward the end of the tale.

Co-writer and director Anne Fontaine seems to like to dissect long marriages, at least as evidenced by this film and others in her oeuvre like Nettoyage à sec, and Nathalie. . . might have had a more visceral impact had Fontaine more fully developed the history between Catherine and Bernard. Instead we get a somewhat "frozen" picture of a couple who have been together for some time and whose passion for each other has perhaps understandably cooled, but there may not be enough information granted here, especially about some of Catherine's "control issues", to really give the film proper motivation and drama. Instead, Fontaine seems to want to tease the audience vicariously (the film is surprisingly chaste, given its overheated plot dynamics), especially with regard to the now rechristened Nathalie's ability to kind of shock the more prim and proper Catherine by regaling her with stories about her dalliances with Bernard.

The whole lack of some motivational underpinning for Catherine seems especially ill considered when the plot relies on her repeatedly contacting Nathalie, breaking off things, and then reestablishing them again. If Catherine really wants her version of "control", she seems to be going about it in an absolutely random manner at times. Once semi-romantic sparks begin to flare between Catherine and Nathalie, it seems like Fontaine has finally found where she wants to go, but even this potentially intriguing subplot is never fully developed, though some background reading suggests this may have been due at least in part because neither Ardant nor Béart reportedly wanted to portray a lesbian relationship.

That said, what actually may play more believably here than any supposed prurient angle is the fact that Catherine obviously sees Nathalie as a true (not necessarily sexual) intimate, to the point that Catherine brings Nathalie home to meet Catherine's mother (Judith Magre), in a kind of patently odd sidebar. Nathalie obviously seems to be providing something to Catherine that Catherine is not getting in her marriage, but that only makes another sidebar involving Catherine and a potential dalliance with a younger man another detour which seems to suggest Catherine's problems may be too severe for even her to handle.

Instead of either a subterfuge laden thriller or a kind of penetrating character study involving sexually charged subject matter, there's an intermittently involving interplay focused on three obviously vastly different characters, and if a kind of socioeconomic subtext is (again) never fully developed, that at least gives the film a kind of provocative aspect. Ardant is typically poised and kind of remote as Catherine, with Béart offering something perhaps more in the Baby Doll or even Lolita mold, but it's these two performances that really drive the film more than Depardieu, whose character almost seems like a (necessary) afterthought at times.

It may be a futile but still interesting thought experiment to think about how someone like Clouzot or Chabrol might have shaped this material, and if either or both of them may have tended to go a bit Grand Guignol with maybe a murder or attempted murder or two, that still may have been better than this film's denouement, which basically decides the whole thing has been what amounts to a shaggy dog story.

Nathalie... Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nathalie. . . is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection, an imprint of Cohen Media Group, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.36:1. Cohen often doesn't tend to offer much in the way of provenance of elements or transfer specifications in its cover verbiage, though they do tend to mention new restorations or transfers they've personally undertaken, and in the absence of any such touting on this disc, I'm assuming this may have been the work of StudioCanal. The transfer has both strengths and weaknesses at times, with variant color temperature that often seemed skewed more toward yellows than I would have liked (that said, actual dialogue later in the film mentions how yellow daffodils are, so maybe it was intentional). This tendency can push reds toward orange territory at times and give flesh tones a somewhat jaundiced look. In some of the more brightly lit material, the palette attains a more naturalistic appearance. Detail levels are generally very good, though the entire transfer is kind of gauzy and soft, especially some of the nightclub material.

Nathalie... Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Nathalie. . . features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 options in the original French. There's frankly not a huge difference between these tracks, but that is at least partially due to the "chamber drama" nature of the piece, which tends to emphasize interior spaces and talky dialogue scenes. Michael Nyman's expressive score sounds great and arguably has a bit more presence and spaciousness in the surround mix. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Cohen continues to offer foreign language releases with burnt in English subtitles for some reason, rather than making subtitles optional.

Nathalie... Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (SD; 1:46)

Nathalie... Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nathalie. . . was remade by Atom Egoyan as Chloe in 2009, and that version may have offered more of a traditional thriller aspect, at least in some ways. This is a kind of curious film from a number of reasons, not the least of which is trying to figure out what exactly Catherine is after and why. Technical merits are generally solid for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.