Damage (1992)

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

..have watched this film couple-three times through the years.. and really do very much like all the actors involved.. but it's a clear and simple case of an over exaggerated script and similar direction.. in real life, unless you're mentally incapacitated, you know there are actual consequences to your actions, yet here you have two seemingly highly intelligent individuals blowing up their entire lives, and those of loved ones around them, all for a totally unworkable relationship.. and then one of the final scenes ices it.. the two of them flailing around in bed like no other on-screen couple you've seen before or since.. really, had they just toned it down a notch or two overall.. it would have come off sooo much better..

Were I to go along with the analysis/theorising surrounding this title both in the reviews themselves and the more than usual comments in the discussion section I may well remind myself that it was directed by Louis Malle who had already made a film centred on incest rather than one in which incest is merely a factor. Arguably the earlier film was more personal to Malle involving as it did mother and son in the here and now rather than siblings several years in the past. Not having read the novel on which Damage is based I have no idea how large the incest factor featured but the fact that Malle read it and optioned it virtually on publication - the film itself was released within a couple of years of publication - may be pertinent. Judging it just on its merits as a film it is well written, photographed, directed and acted and on balance more art house than multiplex.

The title here is like a punchline to a joke. In a near two hour film, we have an exceptionally slow plodding story, as if somehow the horrible tragedy near it's end, pays off, which it does on a first view. We feel the whole of this told film in a necessity up to that point. And lets be honest, watching the nubile Irons and Binoche, get it on, we almost wish a re run of the seamy scenes in Basic Instinct, replaced it. There is no eroticism, or chemistry, whatsoever. However I can't say I hated the film. It least does have some humping, whatever, one scene in particular has Binoche covering Iron's eye, while like skyward, dreamily. Irons works as a minister in Parliament, whatever, has a loving and supportive wife, the great Miranda Richardson, the acting stealer here. He lives in riches, has a beautiful teen daughter, a little rebellious sort, and a successful son (Rupert Graves) great too, who works for a paper and who's fiancée', is fatally Binoche. So we, know some sort of Damage is gonna eventuate. For men, cheating is almost second nature. Personally I think Irons character is such an idiot, in part he gets what he deserves at the end of this movie, though you do feel a tad sorry for him. I think Richardson is far sexier than Binoche, but we all know opinions tend to very. This drama, actually a class about it, as in it's slow pacing, where we other family, in one scene Binoche's ex, played by Peter Stormare, in an unusually calm role. What damage does at the end though, leaves you with an afterthought, about the consequences of cheating, where losing the ones we love, comes at a much heavier price. The title artistry is great, with each letter fading onto the screen, of course, in slow succession.

Damage is by no means an easy film to sit through. It's not your conventional love triangle film, but rather a film about two people who give themselves to each other with no thought to the consequences of what they are doing. Politician Stephen Miller meets his son Martin's new girlfriend, Anna Barton, and almost immediately the two begin an obsessive affair. Of course, this unhealthy attraction can only end badly, and it does.Part of the reason why Damage is so difficult to watch is because the two main characters are so detestable. Stephen is a man who has it all; a loving wife, two children and a career. And he throws it all away for a girl he doesn't even know (they hardly talk, their relationship is all about obsessive lust), whom we know is a damaged soul herself with a dark past. Juliette Binoche crafts the morbid character of Anna well with vacant stares, an androgynous air, yet enough charm so that we at least see what Stephen sees in her. Neither gives any thought to the people around them and what their essentially hollow affair does.About the only character on whose side I was on, and who made the movie worthwhile for me, was Stephen's wife Ingrid, phenomenally played by Miranda Richardson. Towards the end of the movie, she explodes on the screen and wrenches the hearts of the audience. It's easy to see why Miranda Richardson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role. If you can stomach two destructive, very much unlikeable leads, Richardson's performance makes the ride at least worthwhile.