Name: Retro Film Review: Cousin Bette (1998)
Item: Cousin Bette
Rating: 40
Author: @drax

(source:tmdb.org)

"May you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse that affected Honore de Balzac (1799 - 1850), one of the most notable figures of French and world literature. During his life he experienced wars, three violent revolutions and five regime changes. He also witnessed how emerging power of nouveau riche bourgeoisie have replaced old feudal aristocracy – process during which many dark sides of human character manifested themselves. While most of the novelists of his time, disgusted with such reality, tried to find solace by escaping into romantic past, Balzac used his talent to record the present. Result was The Human Comedy, huge series of novels describing each and every aspect of French society in first half of 19th Century. One of such novels, Cousin Bette, was adapted into 1998 film, directed by Des McAnuff.

Plot of the film begins in 1846 Paris. Elisabeth "Bette" Fisher (played by Jessica Lange) is 40 year old spinster who hopes to inherit some money from her rich and dying sister Adeline (played by Geraldine Chaplin) or become new wife for Adeline's husband Baron Hulot (played by Hugh Laurie). She is more than disappointed when she learns that she won't get a penny and all Hulot would offer her is a humiliating job of governess. Infuriated Bette decides to abandon family and start her life as a seamstress for raunchy burlesque theatre. There she meets Jenny Cadine (played by Elisabeth Shue), actress who also happens to be one of most popular courtesans of Paris. In the meantime, she begins to notice Wenceslas Steinbach (played by Aden King), struggling Polish quasi-artist living in her neighbourhood. She rescues him from starvation and youth returns favour by turning her advances down for the sake of her niece Hortense (played by Kelly McDonald). Wenceslas hopes to solve his financial problems by marrying into Hulot family. Bette, on the other hand, knows that Baron, deprived of his late wife's sound financial advice, had his family fortune wasted on mistresses. Bette decides to use her family's predicament for the revenge against the people who humiliated her.

This movie adaptation of Cousin Bette was probably inspired by Jane Austen craze and Merchant Ivory's adaptations of 19th Century literary classics. On the other hand, the world Balzac described is very different from rural aristocracy of early 19th Century England or sexually repressed Victorians. Balzac's world is more textured and his approach to characters more cynical and misanthropic. Screenwriters Lynn Siefert and Susan Tarr recognised that, but in doing so, they completely ignored the novels' social and political context and reduced Balzac into "19th Century equivalent of Jackie Collins". Director McAnuff continues with this approach and turns Cousin Bette into soap opera with period costumes. The acting is mostly good, due to British cast, but Jessica Lange is not exactly convincing in the role of mousy 40-year old "hag". But the worst atrocity is the extensive use of musical numbers, more suitable for depiction of decadent Weimar-era Berlin than 19th Century Paris. Simon Boswell's music is good and those numbers provide Elisabeth Shue with opportunity to show some of her more apparent attributes; on the other hand, those scenes are in many ways too anachronistic and manage to kill suspension of disbelief. The scenes showing 1848 Revolution at the end don't add anything to film and only manage to make the plot resolution totally confusing. Cousin Bette is a watchable film, but those seeking for the proper adaptation of Balzac's work would have to look somewhere else.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on June 15th 2004)