The air-headed Audrey Tautou acquires a brain in this adaptation of a Francois Mauriac novel. She is heiress of thousands of acres of Aquitaine, including a huge stand of timber and miles of sandy beaches, and marries the man next door, who owns almost as much. She has a dreamy girl-friend (hubby's sister) who falls in love and is locked up for it, to marry the man of her family's choice. In short, Audrey is living in an open prison and decides to off her husband, who regularly takes four drops of arsenic for his heart condition. She forges a prescription and radically ups his dose until he nearly dies. The family sticks together and backs up her phony story, then locks her away in a tatty loft bedroom, deprived for ever of her infant daughter. Only at the end of nearly two hours does her husband announce that she is to be set free. She announces that she will move to a hotel in Paris and live her own life. On that happy note, the film ends, but not before we have lived through her hellish existence for a little too long. Recommended for Tautou's performance.
