''Gabrielle'' is a 2005 French film directed by

Patrice Chéreau Patrice Chéreau (; 2 November 1944 – 7 October 2013) was a French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer. In France he is best known for his work for the theatre, internationally for his films '' La Reine Margot'' and ...

. It is a screen adaptation of Joseph Conrad's short story ''The Return''.

Plot

Jean Harvey and his wife Gabrielle are renowned within

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

haute bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

for the salons they host each Thursday evening. Jean and Gabrielle live a comfortable yet regimented life in a well-appointed Paris mansion, assisted by a retinue of devoted servants. Yet their marriage is more of a contract than a relationship. Jean confides to the audience that he loves Gabrielle "as a collector loves his most prized object." On their 10th anniversary, Jean comes home to find a note from Gabrielle in which she writes that within the hour she will have left to meet her lover. Jean spends several minutes digesting the meaning of the note. Gabrielle returns shortly, though, and Jean and Gabrielle reflect on their marriage for the remainder of the film.

Notes

''Gabrielle'' opened in the United States on 14 July 2006 at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and the

IFC Center IFC Center is an art house movie theater in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. Located at 323 Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) at West 3rd Street, it was formerly the Waverly Theater, an art house movie theater. IFC Center is ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. It was also available that weekend to many home cable subscribers throughout the U.S. via

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

through IFC. Subsequent release dates were July 28, 2006 in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and 4 August 2006 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

Cast

Isabelle Huppert Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert (; born 16 March 1953) is a French actress. Described as "one of the best actresses in the world", she is known for her portrayals of cold and disdainful characters devoid of morality. She is the recipient of sev ...

as Gabrielle Hervey *

Pascal Greggory Pascal Greggory (born 8 September 1954) is a French actor. Personal life Greggory is openly gay. He had long-term relationships with Patrice Chéreau and François-Marie Banier. Filmography * '' Les Sœurs Brontë'' (1979) by André Téchiné * ...

as Jean Hervey * Claudia Coli as Yvonne, Gabrielle's maid *

Chantal Neuwirth Chantal Neuwirth (born 1948) is a French actress, who also played on theatre. Theater Filmography References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Neuwirth, Chantal 1948 births Living people French stage actresses French film actresses Fren ...

as Madeleine * Thierry Hancisse as Editor in Chief of Jean's financial publication *

Jeanne Herry Jeanne Herry (born 19 April 1978) is a French filmmaker and actress. Personal life She is the daughter of actress Miou-Miou and singer-songwriter Julien Clerc Paul Alain Leclerc (born 4 October 1947), known by his stage name Julien Clerc (), ...

as The maid *

Raina Kabaivanska Raina Yakimova Kabaivanska ( bg, Райна Якимова Кабаиванска); born 15 December 1934) is a Bulgarian opera singer, one of the leading lirico-spinto sopranos of her generation, particularly associated with Verdi and Pucci ...

as a singer and pianist

Reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Gabrielle'' holds an approval rating of 74%, based on 54 reviews, and an average rating of 6.7/10. Its consensus reads, "Patrice Chéreau's exquisite rendering of Joseph Conrad's The Return brings underlying passions to surface in a long-suffering marriage". On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 79 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews". ''Gabrielle'' was placed at 89 on '' Slant Magazine''s best films of the 2000s.

Accolades

* 2006 César Awards **Won: Best Costume Design (Caroline de Vivaise) **Won: Best Production Design (Olivier Radot) **Nominated: Best Actress – Leading Role (Isabelle Huppert) **Nominated: Best Cinematography (Eric Gautier) **Nominated: Best Sound (Olivier Dô Hùu, Benoît Hillebrant and Guillaume Sciama) **Nominated: Best Writing – Adaptation (Patrice Chéreau and Anne-Louise Trividic) *

2005 Venice Film Festival The 62nd annual Venice International Film Festival opened on 31 August 2005 with Tsui Hark's ''Seven Swords'' and closed on 10 September 2005 with a screening of Peter Ho-sun Chan's musical '' Perhaps Love''. The lineups were announced by the fe ...

**Nominated: Golden Lion (Patrice Chéreau)

References

External links

* * * {{Conrad 2005 drama films 2005 films Films based on short fiction Films based on works by Joseph Conrad Films directed by Patrice Chéreau Films featuring a Best Actress Lumières Award-winning performance French drama films 2000s French-language films 2000s French films