The Bridesmaid (film)

The Bridesmaid
DVD cover
Directed by	Claude Chabrol
Screenplay by	Claude Chabrol Pierre Leccia
Based on	The Bridesmaid by Ruth Rendell
Produced by	Françoise Galfré Patrick Godeau
Starring	Benoît Magimel Laura Smet
Cinematography	Eduardo Serra
Edited by	Monique Fardoulis
Music by	Matthieu Chabrol
Production companies	Alicéléo Canal Diffusion France 2 Cinéma Integral Film
Distributed by	First Run Features
Release date	7 September 2004 (2004-09-07) (Venice Film Festival)
Running time	111 minutes
Countries	France Italy Germany
Box office	$3.3 million

The Bridesmaid is a 2004 psychological thriller film co-written and directed by Claude Chabrol. Its title in French is La Demoiselle d'honneur. The film is based on the 1989 novel The Bridesmaid by Ruth Rendell.

Plot

Philippe (Magimel) lives on the outskirts of Nantes with his mother Christine (Clément) who is a hairdresser and with his two younger sisters. One day, a local girl mysteriously disappears. Soon after, Philippe's mother introduces her children to Gerard (Le Coq) -- a wealthy local businessman who appears interested in pursuing her. She gives him a sculpture of the Roman goddess Flora that had been in the family garden.

Not too long after receiving the gift, Gerard appears to vanish without a trace, presumably in order to avoid contact with Christine. Philippe makes it his mission to recover the sculpture. He finally tracks it down and places it in his closet without telling anyone. Later, at his sister's wedding, Philippe meets attractive bridesmaid Senta (Smet) and the two quickly fall for each other passionately. She claims to be a model and aspiring actress who lives in a huge villa which she says she inherited from her father. The sexy Senta may be beautiful and irresistible, yet she also invents stories about herself and has macabre ideas about life, love, and death. As their affair intensifies, she asks Philippe to kill a stranger to prove his love. When he refuses, she kicks him out of her house, telling him he doesn't really love her. Philippe presents a news article about a dead tramp as proof that he has done the deed, and Senta, in return, tells him that she has killed Gerard. Philippe, not wanting to believe that she has really done it, goes to Gerard's house and finds that he is still alive. Relieved that Senta is not a murderer, he gives her the sculpture of Flora and asks her to marry him. A police inspector informs Philippe that another man was killed at the same location, and asks Philippe to explain his presence there. When he is released from the police station, Philippe calls Senta and tells her that they should break up. He then meets the homeless man whom he had claimed to have murdered, but whose reported death was a case of mistaken identity.

Philippe returns to Senta's house, and she confesses to him that she has killed a young woman who wanted to steal her previous boyfriend. As the police arrive, Philippe tells Senta that he will never leave her.

Principal cast

Actor	Role
Benoît Magimel	Philippe Tardieu
Laura Smet	Stéphanie "Senta" Bellange
Aurore Clément	Christine
Bernard Le Coq	Gérard Courtois
Suzanne Flon	Madame Crespin
Solène Bouton	Sophie Tardieu
Anna Mihalcea	Patricia Tardieu
Suzanne Flon	Madame Crespin
Thomas Chabrol	Lieutenant José Laval

Critical reception

The film was well received by critics. Website metacritic.com assigned a 74 out of 100 based on 20 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

Desson Thomas of The Washington Post:

Chabrol arranges his story with a subtle, almost clinical accumulation. And it takes close attention to the movie's seemingly innocuous details to understand his deeper purposes. But the filmmaker has never been as interested in the machinations of plot as much as aberrant human nature... its rewards come from sustained concentration rather than from relaxed observation.

Ty Burr of The Boston Globe:

The film reveals its secrets slowly, and Chabrol tightens the screws not according to the rules of Hollywood suspense but with a cool, level gaze. Of the great filmmakers of the French New Wave, he may have changed the least over the years, and there's a continuity of tone and morbid inquiry that runs from Le Boucher (1970) through La Ceremonie (1995, and also based on Rendell) to The Bridesmaid. Comparisons to Hitchcock have been made throughout his career, but they serve to define differences more than similarities. Hitch made movie suspense showy and fun. Chabrol grounds it in realism and ponders the hazy line where eccentricity turns homicidal.

External links

• The Bridesmaid at IMDb
• The Bridesmaid at AllMovie