The place is Paris in the late eighteen hundreds. Its days are dark; its streets, narrow, and the people dress as if they are trying to keep their dreary souls held in check.
... A young man, named Camille, has recently gotten a chance for a job in Paris and moves there with his new wife and his mother-- to make a fresh start. For maybe ten years before, these three have lived outside of Paris- isolated from real commerce. The son has been sickly all of his life, and his mom has always doted on him. Into the lives of these two, a girl cousin has been entrusted-- by the mother's brother, thanks to his loss of a wife and his own unableness to care for her.
So... weird as it seems to me, the young boy and girl, sleep in the same bed from then on. When they have both reached adulthood, the mother decides they should now marry. So you have this sickly man, now married to this young woman with her physical- emotional needs that accompany a normal girl's being. (Ignorance makes bliss disappear.) This girl, bless her heart, does not seem to know or to understand how to handle her needs; so a muscled man, seen, arouses in her desires that no one's cautioned her about controlling.
Therese is her name, and when she and her new husband and aunt/mother-in-law move to Paris, what happens? Camille brings home, a guy, old friend, Laurent, just to see his mother, Madame Raquin, and meet his wife. After few frames of the movie camera, we know that they're going to be acting out both their needs. He's used to prostitutes- but now can't afford them - and she wants to fulfill her needs with somebody who knows how to do the job well. They do say they love each other, but we know how that goes. Love is far from their hearts.
When Camille tells Therese they are going to have to leave Paris and settle in a place that is healthier for him, she rebels; and one thought leads to another: where she and her bed friend, Laurent, decide to drown Camille. Now here's the "funny" thing. Once this foul deed has been achieved, they both start to suffer "killers'-remorse". I mean, here are two souls, owning no more than the drive to fulfill their lusts, suddenly in the throes of guilt... suffering grief to such an extent they are no longer able to tolerate one another.
The author now allows them to marry-thanks to the "thoughtfulness" of Camille's mom and her mutual friends, who think nothing makes more sense than having them get married. But soon, Madame Raquin suffers vision-strokes and begins to see that Camille was murdered by these two folks. Yet, poor Madame can't speak-she can just scrawl the news in black ink on an entrance slab for her friends to soon see.
As the story moves towards its denouement, the script wants Camille and Laurent to kill each other. But as they start to do that, they see what each is about to do: One will stab; one, poison. And it's then that they both think to just drink the poison-each one gulping down large drafts. And then they lie down-in the throes of death-Madame Raquin casting an eye on them from her nearby wheelchair.
How to make sense of this glum and torpid melodrama? These were not real people-
but temperaments dressed as people- with the author as well as the director, Charles Stratton, showing what happens when people who are only wired to fornicate fail to secure their lives in a world that prays they function well on more than all fours. That won't suffice for one's life's role.
Surely, IN SECRET shows what happens to such brutes..And for that I find no error. But there is no lift here. No language that transports our thoughts to realms that enrich us. All we have is a sort of putrid debacle.
Camille is played by Tom Felton; Therese, Elizabeth Olson; Laurent, Oscar Isaac; Madame Raquin, is played by Jessica Lange. Both Olson and Lange do a stupendous job playing their roles. Isaac and Felton do a pretty good job, too. My problem is: these actors are locked in roles that really do not allow us to believe they are human beings. The words--put in their mouths-- could be said by robots- and that's the part I can't abide.
My grade is just a FIVE. Would I recommend it? Maybe: to a young boy or girl who doesn't realize what happens when you just operate on one cylinder instead of at least four. They might learn something here. Anyone else, I'd say: 'Skip it.'
Creator of "The Wizard's Outrageous Scheme For Stopping Smoking",
Humbler Acts reports one film every week as relaxation from his
speaking and writing on stopping smoking through dream use and Seven
Forces. He's American, English-educated, residing in St. Louis, MO
(USA). He can be reached: humbleracts@aol.com or telephone: 314-574-7681.
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