Taglines: Can you ever control another person’s sexuality?
Nathalie… movie storyline. A Parisian couple, Bernard (Gerard Depardieu) and his wife Catherine (Fanny Ardant) are an upper middle-class middle aged bourgeois man and wife whose sex life has lost its excitement. Fanny plans a surprise birthday party for Bernard for his return from an overseas flight but he misses the flight and Fanny is left to celebrate alone with all the other guests.
Fanny intercepts a phone message to Bernard from a woman referring to a sexual liaison but Bernard claims that the relationship means nothing to him. One evening Fanny wanders into a sex club and confronts a beautiful young prostitute Marlene (Emmanuelle Beart) with the proposition that she makes friends with her husband to find out what he likes, ostensibly so she can understand him better.
Using the name Nathalie, Marlene goes through with the initially innocent plan, meeting Bernard at his favorite café, pretending to accidentally meet him and asking for a light for her cigarette and getting paid by Catherine. When Marlene reports that Bernard has taken her to a hotel for sex Catherine is upset but asks Marlene to continue reporting to her what the couple does during their trysts. Catherine bonds to Marlene and sees how her life and that of Bernard have developed in ways that can never be changed.
Nathalie… is a 2003 French drama film directed by Anne Fontaine, and starring Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, and Gérard Depardieu. The screenplay concerns a woman who discovers that her husband is cheating on her. The film had its gala North American premiere at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival.
Director Atom Egoyan remade the film in 2009, now entitled Chloe.[4] The film stars Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried. A reviewer in the New York Daily News (Elizabeth Weizmann) contrasting the original with the remake says Egoyan “Having adapted a film—via Erin Cressida Wilson’s screenplay—from an erotic French drama called Nathalie, Egoyan appears convinced that he’s creating a suspenseful work of art, rather than a mildly kinky bit of arthouse exploitation.” However, in his self-promotion, the director of the remake, Egoyan, described Chloe as more erotically charged than Nathalie…
Film Review for Nathalie…
I think “Nathalie…” is a very interesting film. Once again French moviemakers confirm they’re among the best European and (to me) World directors. Because they’re also able to show a simple story, a simple tale where there’s room for feelings and sensations.
A woman discovers she’s betrayed by her husband. She hires a prostitute to follow constantly and to seduce him. The wife wants always to be told what has happened (she also wants to know exactly the way the girl has had sex with the man). But between the two women a friendship grows and also in the marriage something changes… Thanks to the young girl the married couple will find again the dialogue. Without being melodramatic, the film has an original approach for telling a story about couple problems and human relationships. “Nathalie…” contains studies about that.
Nathalie… (2003)
Directed by: Anne Fontaine
Starring: Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, Gérard Depardieu, Wladimir Yordanoff, Judith Magre, Évelyne Dandry, Aurore Auteuil, Idit Cebula, Sasha Rucavina, Macha Polikarpova
Screenplay by: Philippe Blasband, Jacques Fieschi
Production Design by: Michel Barthélémy
Cinematography by: Jean-Marc Fabre
Film Editing by: Emmanuelle Castro
Costume Design by: Pascaline Chavanne
Set Decoration by: Boris Piot
Music by: Michael Nyman
Distributed by: Koch-Lorber Films
Release Date: September 11, 2003
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