The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)

Usually if there are two separate timelines featured in a story, the director tries to ensure that we cannot readily distinguish between one that might be true and one that might be artificial. It's the complete opposite that really works well here as we mingle the story of an 18th century woman living within the constraints of high Victorian society with a more profligate 1970s one. To fit out the earlier scenario, we meet the shy "Sarah" (Meryl Streep) who is rebounding from a liaison with the titular French lieutenant by having an even less suitable assignation with the altogether more decent "Charles" (Jeremy Irons). The modern day scenario has the same two actors playing "Anna" and "Mike", only both are married to others and they are the "real" life actors portraying these other characters in a film of their lives. Now we get to experience the story of both relationships undulating in parallel. It sounds way more complex than it actually is as a combination of Harold Pinter's adaptation of the original novel and the acting from both Streep and Irons manages to convince us that though we are seeing two separate stories play out before us, they have remarkable similarities in the life imitating art sort of space. I preferred the older scenario, but only because the supporting cast of characters could make much more of their rigid, sexist and downright hypocritical environment and Streep works well with her frankly quite insipid "Sarah". The more modern day story tended more to soap for my liking: their behaviour more duplicitous, selfish and that led to a disappointing degree of predicability. More relatable, if you like. I'm not really a fan of Irons, but here he works well across both iterations and gels remarkably well with a Streep who seems to morph from both of her persona effortlessly and convincingly. The pace can dawdle at times, and maybe Karel Reisz could have just tightened things up a little at the rather plodding start, but the production design across both storylines looks good and it's once the tram lines are laid down and the two become entrenched, it becomes quite a compelling story of love, lust, betrayal and lies.

Jan 17, 2025