A handsome story of forbidden love in Nazi-occupied France starring Michelle Williams and Matthias Schoenaerts
A handsome story of forbidden love in Nazi-occupied France starring Michelle Williams and Matthias Schoenaerts.
Williams plays a married Frenchwoman and Schoenaerts is the compassionate German officer billeted with her and her overbearing mother-in-law (Kristin Scott Thomas) during the occupation of their small town.
The main love story follows an all too predictable course, unnecessarily underscored by Williams' redundant voiceover narration. It is also overshadowed by the history of the book on which it is based - author Irène Némirovsky perished in Auschwitz in 1942 and her uncompleted novel was only published more than 60 years after her death.
However, it is sensitively acted, genuinely stirring in places and, when the focus widens to look at the reactions of the wider community, richly fascinating as well.
Screening at 10.00pm-11.40pm on BBC2 Northern Ireland and Scotland.
