The Aviator's Wife

Director: Éric Rohmer
Year Released: 1981
Rating: 1.5

This film, like some of Rohmer's other chat-fests, can almost be thought of as a filmed play, using (for the most part) three sets - the park, a café and a bedroom - and a few scattered exterior shots. For being a comedy (or proverb), it's a dour affair, with the cast wandering around, unhappy and eager to discuss their unhappiness (though never arriving at any conclusion); it picks up briefly when a precocious fifteen-year-old enters the picture and livens up the middle act ... only to be re-saddled with the weight of melancholy for the last forty minutes, most of which take place in a single room. I don't have anything against using a limited number of locales so long as the conversation or interaction is compelling: just look and see at the tension Jean Eustache created in the memorably minimal The Mother and the Whore.