A MARRIED WOMAN Movie Review

La Femme Mariee

A young married woman (Macha Méril) tries to make up her mind whether to leave her husband or her lover. The urgency of her crisis is prompted by her pregnancy, though she's not sure which of the two men is the baby's co-founder. Jean-Luc Godard's film looks and feels like it could have been made by a wicked student of his trying to imitate—or poke fun at—the master. Many of Godard's visual and storytelling innovations are here, such as quick jump cuts, interpretive titles, dry, ironic narration (by Godard) and bold fantasy sequences, but the subject matter is trifling and the method isn't exciting enough to make us not care about the flimsiness. He made Band of Outsiders the same year; that's the one to rent. (The French distributor forced Godard to change the movie's title from The Married Woman—suggesting they're all like this—to the more character-specific A Married Woman. This French sensitivity toward the institution of marriage may be the most interesting nugget to emerge from the film.)

NEXT STOP … My Life to Live, Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Contempt

1965 94m/B FR Macha Meril, Phillippe LeRoy, Bernard Noel; D: Jean-Luc Godard; W: Jean-Luc Godard; C: Raoul Coutard. VHS, 8mm VYY, MRV, DVT