I'll take these in the order of the title rather than the order I watched them. Now, much to my chagrin, I've now seen everything (that sounds so much, more like "all three dvds") lovefilm has of Isabelle Carré and quite frankly, I couldn't leave it at that. So loathe though I am to do it (and I did actually search french sites to buy dvds, but alas, no subtitles) I downloaded a couple of her César-nominated turns. The first was Les sentiments starring Nathalie Baye, Isabelle and Jean-Pierre Bacri (all of whom got César noms for this), with a small role for an unrecognisably shaved Melvil Poupaud.
The story is that of two couples, Baye is married to Bacri (who is the local doctor) and Isabelle & Melvil (Bacri's long-term replacement) move in next door. What then plays out is a not unfamiliar exploration of an affair between two of the foursome. What elevates this over the norm, just like Anna M. is the quality of the acting, although this time it's all-round rather than just Carré. Bacri really comes into his own in the final third, Baye has a small-ish role but she has a confrontation with Bacri where she truly excels and Isabelle is the glue - in lesser hands more questions may be asked about her character but she's so good she makes you believe it anyway. It's not great because of the tone problem (it's like a Cassavetes movie but with random choral singers doing the score and cutting to them every 10 mins) and the script often falls short of being genuinely moving but there's lots to like here.
Another staple-genre piece of hers is In His Hands, in which she is revelatory (and her co-star Benoît Poelvoorde more than matches her, getting a César nom for it as well as Isabelle). The story of this is again familiar territory - Claire (Isabelle) is in the claims departement of an insurance company and upon doing local vet Laurent (Poelvoorde) a kindness by upgrading his policy to cover his claim he pursues her friendship by asking her for coffees and turning up at work. She seems to like the attention and his natural charm and occasional bouts of melanchloy add to their relationship. All this amid the backdrop of the spree of a serial killer the press have named "Doctor Death".
It is designed to work on multiple levels the first run through (is he the killer or just sad?) and Poelvoorde plays that wonderfully - in a way it's like Charlotte Rampling in Under the Sand - while what the director is doing may be obvious the skill of the performance is admirable. Carré though has so much to do and she's magnificent, you can see the consequences of her character's decisions etched on her face, so brilliantly natural and subtle, a sublime turn. The movie though, again because of the performances, is better than the material - apparantly it's getting the Hollywood remake and I cannot imagine them finding a pair who portray the characters so honestly and give such powerhouse performances, but it would be nice to see Amy Adams in an Isabelle role, please, let's see what she can do dramatically. I cannot believe though that with the obvious accessibility of this (hence the remake) it hasn't even got a dvd release here, I guess it didn't do well enough at the box office and Fontaine needs to cast Béart and Depardieu to get international distribution.
Now onto the playwrights - I caught the 1945 adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and I have been meaning to see it for some time on TCM but it's usually on at absolutely moronic times. It's very good, George Sanders is his ever wonderful self (wearing Wildes witticisms like a tailor made suit) but it is a young Angela Lansbury as the doomed Miss Vane who steals both the show and the viewers' hearts. Shots of the painting to be in colour was an inspired decision, this is an adaptation with excellent direction and very good performances that just works.
The second playwright is in a film I've actively been putting off watching, namely Molière. The reason for my hesitation is it is very much in the style of Shakespeare in Love and that film only *really* works if you are very familiar with the works of Shakespeare as the film is written in that style - which was fine for me as I know Shakespeare fairly well but with Molière I am totally in the dark. Still, I shouldn't have worried, while I didn't know the exact references it was fairly obvious that most of it was done in that style. The cast are all good, the score is lovely and the sets and costumes first rate. I don't think it was a great film as it seemed to be a more literal use of specific plays rather than the general rapier-like wit of Tom Stoppard's Shakespeare screenplay, but nonetheless a fairly entertaining film.