Leaving - Kristin Scott Thomas stars as an upper-middle-class wife who risks everything for love

(Image credit: Hassen_Brahiti)

Kristin Scott Thomas's adoptive country France has been giving her the best roles of her career lately - and French filmmakers have been encouraging her to go ever further in pursuit of emotional truth.

Recently, she's stripped herself of make-up for her award-winning role as a grief-stricken ex-con in I’ve Loved You So Long. And she goes even further in Catherine Corsini’s romantic melodrama Leaving, giving a performance of astonishing candour.

Her character, an upper-middle-class woman married to a coldly arrogant doctor, risks everything for love and self-fulfilment when she falls for Sergi Lopez’s Spanish handyman. As an actress, Scott Thomas is proving to be equally fearless.

"Kristin Scott Thomas risks everything for love in her latest role." Read the full review.

Leaving is released on DVD on 29th November.

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.