A Girl Cut in Two (2007)

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.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The plot is plain dumb, and we are dealing, in the main, with characters who are living their private fantasies of what they perceive modern, sophisticated French urban lifestyle is all about. There is always a glass of something close to hand, much of the "action" takes place at meal tables, and too much discourse centers on who bonked whom and how long ago. Female lead Ludivine Sagnier, playing a vivacious TV weather girl,can't make up her mind whether she's in love with a very self-important author older than her mother, or disgusted by him. Simultaneously she's dealing half-heartedly with the close attentions of a very wealthy and very smitten young man whose immaturity and emotional imbalance grated on this viewer. How will it all turn out?With characters like these, does anybody care?

Updating (and transposing to France) an American cause célèbre of the early 1900s – already lavishly filmed in Hollywood as THE GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING (1955) – this is one of the few cases (like ALICE OR THE LAST ESCAPADE [1977], M. LE MAUDIT [1982; TV], QUIET DAYS IN CLICHY [1990], DR. M [1990], MADAME BOVARY [1991] and L'ENFER [1994]) where Chabrol attempted to put his stamp on material already dealt with by other hands. In this, he was not unlike Fritz Lang (who had remade two Jean Renoir films in the U.S.) and it seems no coincidence that the scenes in A GIRL CUT IN TWO depicting the elder male lead spending time with his equally jaded colleagues in an exclusive men's private club evoke memories of Lang's THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944).If the film itself is wholly predictable and certainly cannot be counted among Chabrol's very best efforts, this attests to the high standard of his oeuvre. Though the beguiling Ludivine Sagnier is at the centre of it, her character actually serves mainly to enlighten those of the (more interesting) couple of men she becomes involved with: successful middle-aged novelist Francois Berleand (who resembles a lot the way Werner Herzog looks today!) and the conceited yet volatile member of a fallen aristocracy played by Benoit Magimel. Incidentally, I could not help noticing how, for the most part, the various romantic neuroses involved, set as they are against an elitist backdrop, almost feel like your typical Woody Allen product! As such, the plot offers little surprises – that is, apart from an implied raw sexuality – but the solid craftsmanship, infused with Chabrol's trademark meticulousness and irony (as with THE GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING, the heroine ends up a sideshow attraction!), and a most able cast ensure one's interest never wavers throughout.Unfortunately, the copy I acquired of this film was supplied with one of the worst set of subtitles I have ever encountered – though the sense of what was being said generally came through nonetheless in the broken English adopted, every so often it was so intractable as to prove quite amusing (or infuriating, depending on how you look at it)!

Gabrielle Deneige (Ludivine Sagnier) is blonde, friendly, smart but not shrewd or sophisticated. She's a weather presenter on a local television station. Her mother manages a bookstore. Charles Saint-Denis (Francois Berleand) is a famous man of letters, winner of the Prix Goncourt. He's three decades her senior, wealthy, charming, aging and a rake. His wife loves him. Paul Gaudens (Benoit Magimel) is spoiled, arrogant, the young heir to the Gaudens chemical millions and seems to need a keeper to smooth over the trouble he causes for others and himself. His father is dead. His mother is elegant and icy. Both men become fixated on Gabrielle. Saint-Dennis, because she gives him youth and sex, because she is a malleable bit of female clay he can instruct in the worldly ways of sexual dissolution. Gaudens, because she doesn't fall over for him, yet treats him as the attractive man he thinks himself to be. Both men detest each other. Both would be fine catches for any ambitious young woman. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed.. Gabrielle falls in love with Saint-Denis, and is even willing to climb the carved, wooden, circular staircase with him in the elegant rake's club he takes her to, introducing her to his fellow aging, wealthy libertines. Charles wants her, has her, then doesn't want the entanglements, then wants her, then doesn't want the bother of leaving his wife, then wants her. Paul wants her, is furious with Charles for having her, wants her, wants her, wants her. And Gabrielle? The best description of her situation comes from Roger Ebert: "The three central characters are in an emotional fencing match, and Gabrielle lacks a mask." That she survives, and don't ask about the other two, makes a fine story that has not a trace of melodrama. We see what's going on, how the characters change, how Gabrielle changes, with all the usual impending unease that Claude Chabrol brings to his films. We know Gabrielle's situation cannot continue, but Chabrol keeps us guessing about his intentions and her fate. Towards the end, I was almost sure we were going to have one of those sad and ambiguous endings that usually drive me crazy. Then Chabrol wraps up his story about Gabrielle, the girl cut in two, with a final set-up that is amusing and satisfying, and a little surreal. Chabrol has given us a fine movie. He's 78 now, and is a wonder. For those who may be fond of Ludivine Sagnier, three movies come to mind to show her range (not to mention her body): 8 Women, where at 23 she plays a pig-tailed tomboy about 15; Swimming Pool, where a year later she plays a sex pot given to nude swims; and this one. For Francois Berleand, compare his self-assurance here with the high-ranking official Isabelle Huppert turns to sniveling impotence in Chabrol's cynical and satisfying Comedy of Power.

The actress in the movie (I mean the young chick lady) is gorgeous,but out of that,there is really nothing to say.this is the typical awful French movie you can image，they talk,talk,talk,endless dinner,food full of mouths,wine,dreary boring and superficial,and the sex scenes are very conventional to make you cry which is disappointed me most.usually French chick are very plead to expose their body to the camera.it reminds me another film called Lifeforce made about a double decade ago,in that movie Mathilda May(also has a role in this film) is almost fully nude from start to the end,at that time,Mathilda May looks so young and so perfect,she's like the most wonderful thing in the universe,and that is the movie you must have seen.Back to this movie,if you are horny guys looking for young good looking girl,it's a good film.if you're looking for some really good story,it's a bad film,after all it's a bad film,so don't bother you to watch this film,120 minutes long is a torture.