Damage (1992)

When a prominent politician embarks on an obsessive love affair with his son's fiancée, one could easily disregard this to the trashy Romance novel from where it came. But Damage is so much more than this, because it meticulously explores this subversive action with honesty and empathy. Jeremy Irons (Stephen Fleming) has everything a man could want, a great career, money, nice wife, beautiful house and numerous connections with influential people. He's a public figure who seems to have it all. But when he meets Anna (Juliette Binoche), he is awe struck. Anna is a raven-haired beauty with porcelain skin, sharp features and a quiet seductive quality that differs from the usual Hollywood hussy stereotype. The attraction he has for this woman is instantaneous and takes a fierce stronghold onto his pompous, dignified and stuffy nature. A man who is incapable of expressing his feelings due to upbringing, his station in life or whatever, suddenly spirals into this pitiful and lovesick man who can't resist the mysterious and stoic nature of Anna. As they embark on a sexual affair we see that his proper personality is put to the test. As Stephen makes numerous efforts to have sex on the sly with her we witness this prominent man becoming an emotional wreck. Looking gaunt and worried, Stephen finds it hard to sustain his life while maintaining this fling.

Although Anna is complicit in this immoral act, she at least addresses the danger and unethical nature of it. Martin Fleming, her fiancée, loves her and she knows it. She knows how this would affect him if he discovered their fling. But Stephen is willing to forego his son's well-being. The obsession Stephen has for Anna is that intense. How could a father do this to his son ? "we ask ourselves". And this is what this dark and moody tale is about. It's about how a seemingly upstanding citizen and father can lose complete control of his sensibilities in pursuit of his prurient desires. The only way to fill the void in his life is to pursue the beautiful Anna. Is he dissatisfied with his wife? He is now that Anna came into the picture. Juliette Binoche is deceptively effective in this role. She is coy, confident, and doesn't resort to behaving in a loose or sassy manner. She's able to convey so much without even showing any expression. We discover, in two dinner settings, that Anna has a tragic past that involved her brother's suicide. The parallel between Stephen's and Martin's attraction toward Anna is alarmingly similar. We know this is a doomed relationship for all involved, but who will come out unscathed and who will be destroyed is the question. Why Damage is so enthralling as a drama is the complexity of the situation. The psychological impact this has for Stephen is almost unbearable to watch, but we are still fascinated. A woman's intense power, whether it's her beauty, demeanor, collectedness or charisma can have an unyielding stronghold on any man regardless of his position in life. Stephen's weakness was his inability to rationalize and stop what was happening to him and the effect this would have on his world. Even after he ends the affair with Anna by phone in a feeble attempt to stop it all, he soon falls for her again completely smitten and owned.

Fmovies: For this viewer, this was a brilliant satire of the type of self-important love stories that always leave us little people feeling somewhat unworthy. Usually the "star-crossed" lovers are celebrated (Doctor Zhivago, The English Patient), but here they are shown to be what they really are - selfish, shallow morons, callously destroying all that surrounds them in the name of their "special" love. Excellent!

What I find interesting about the prior reviewer is that he could only comment upon the sleaziness of the Jeremy Irons characters. I fully expected to see that in most reviews. It is also most unbalanced, in the manner of the sex role ideologies of the 90's and the oughts.

For any not submerged in feminist victimization ideology, or an exaggerated gallantry, but who can view the situation with a modicum of gender neutrality, the Binoche character is far more culpable than the Irons character. She is no ingenue. Her character must be around 30, and a very worldly 30 plus at that (although she looks 35 plus) -- to his perhaps 45. She plots from moment one to seduce her boyfriend's father, not long after she has hooked up with the boyfriend. She does succeed soon enough, which does him no credit. But he believes she is just one more of a long line of his son's very temporary, and not particularly involved sexual relationships -- and he exudes an obviously sexual loneliness. The Irons and Binoche characters have a very torrid, and mildly S&M, relationship. All along he is obviously conflicted and very uncomfortable that she continue the relationship with both of them. Midway, he wants to leave his wife, make an honest (if marriage destroying) breast of it, and be with her alone. Binoche wants no such thing. She wants both father and son.

What is really maximally warped is Brioche's continued pursuit of the father after the son has proposed marriage, after she has accepted, and after Irons tells her with obvious anguish, but apparent sincerity, that he has decided that he has to break it off, and is breaking it off. It is not a mixed message. He even makes a non-revelatory, but symbolic and emotionally communicative visit to his son in his new, early achieved job as assistant political editor at a tony London newspaper. But Brioche relentlessly pursues him, and lures him back again -- while she is in the midst of planning the wedding.

Further, she spares not a single thought for his public career -- despite the fact that he is a British cabinet minister - or perhaps it is an assistant minister. (She works in a high end antiques establishment).

Sure, she has her troubled childhood history. But even there it isn't clear whether she is more victim, or manipulator. Certainly she was not the most ultimate victim earlier, either. As well, the Irons character, for all his public success, also obviously has emotional issues. They are familiar ones -- a reasonably pleasant, but passionless marriage, a midlife crisis, and a general sense, reflected by his children, that his greatest failing in life is not letting himself go more, not living with more passion. He at least makes some efforts to control himself, and to distance himself after her intentions to commit herself (at least publicly) to his son become clear -- while she does not -- at all.

He of course ends up far more damaged by her than the other way around. She it would seem entered damaged, and left with the pattern just more confirmed.

And yet as I expected, and have so far seen, the currently prevailing impulse is to almost exclusively blame the He -- regardless. Hogwash. Brioche is the ultimate home wrecker.

Damage fmovies. Fatale (Damage) is one of the most deeply lustful and emotionally charged films I've seen in years, a true Louise Malle masterpiece of unbridled passion. The love scenes are hot, to say the least, and I'll never be able to look at Julliet Binochet again without remembering them. Jeremy Irons does incredible work here and Amanda Richardson, who's part really doesn't require much during most of the movie, actually steals the film with some over the top acting at the end. However, it's Julliet Binochet who anchors this fine movie with her riveting performance and her strong and quite impressive visual presence. I simply couldn't take my eyes off her whenever she was on screen.

There's a fine line between passion and pain, and no one does either of them better than Jeremy Irons. Obsession is the bottom line here, and anyone who's been there can relate. Nothing else matters, and in this movie, Irons crosses all the lines. His first introduction to Binoche...their first rendezvous...their last ...these are engraved in my memory. Sure rich and beautiful people populate this movie, but the emotional punch it packs is one hundred percent REAL. Miranda Richardson, as the grieving mother, couldn't be better. The haunting photographic image near the end of the movie hit me very hard. A deserted island? And only one movie? Damage. Damage. Damage.

This movie is really much less shallow than many people criticizing it would think. Actually, I was captivated by it from start to finish. It is understandable that one would question the likeliness of all these events happening, and in that respect the characters might be a bit unreal. But I don't think the movie should be watched that way. The sheer unreasonable passion between Anna and Stephen should be felt, not analyzed. I think that a lot of people wished that they would or could feel something like this for another in today's harsh, business-like world. It is always an easy way out to be cynical about it. Although the characters and their relationships are not very "deep", I found everything entirely believable, and that is the only thing that counts.

I did not really ever see an entire movie with Binoche or Irons, and I wonder how they managed to slip through for so long, because I loved them both. Funny how one commentator remarked that the Anna character should have been sleazier for credibility. Don't you see that this all about self-destruction? The tiny, innocuous-looking Anna that Binoche portrays, a girl that most people wouldn't give a second look, a girl that might seem cold at first sight, is just what attracts Stephen, because they both find in each other what they have never found in anyone else. Both characters are on a mission to make their lives more miserable, because that it what defines them. This certainly goes for Anna, but Stephen is even more interesting because his life is so well organized. Anna is just a catalyst for everything he probably wanted to happen one way or another, and that is why he will not stop their "collision course" when he still can. The inevitability of it all shows best at the end: he shows no remorse, or any other emotion, just acceptation. He was subconsciously wanting to put and end to the life he had been living so far. This is also a feeling that many people can relate to, I think. Yes, the end is a bit theatrical maybe, but it didn't bother me. I'd watch it again next week.

Great movie. **** out of ****.