Damage (1992)

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A piece of art, no doubt about it. The cruel world of a twisted relationship, Love in its best form, delight, ecstatic, psychotic, and death. A final round of abundance, gone beyond belief. Superb performances by Jeremy Irons as usual and Julia Binouch. See it, fee it, recognize it. It's in us all...xx

This film has the best sex scenes. You can tell it's about obsession. Early 1990s were a period when a lot of that sort of sex-obsessed films were released. I guess people got tired of AIDS and decided to focus on other not-so-minor problems caused by illicit sex. Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche are both wonderful in it. They are two intelligent people turned on by danger and unfortunately, they find each other. I love the contemporary late eighties-early nineties costumes, when men and women didn't dress like slobs. Jeremy looks so sexy in his suits. Miranda Richardson as his wife does a wonderful job, especially when she cries. Rupert Graves as his unassuming son and Leslie Caron as Juliette's (Anna's) mother are also great. Photography and set design look like out of Tina Turner's video - not a bad thing at all. It's a highly enjoyable erotic drama.

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.