Gilles' Wife

Set in provincial 1930s France and told in the poetic-realist style of such period masters as Marcel Pagnol and Jean Renoir, Frédéric Fonteyne's follow-up to his acclaimed debut, AN AFFAIR OF LOVE, is a deeply emotional melodrama about one country wife's determination to hold on to her adulterous husband. Elisa (Emmanuelle Devos) and husband Gilles (Clovis Cornillac), a steel worker at a nearby mill, appear to a happy couple: They're raising two beautiful twin girls, Elisa is again pregnant, and though she remains passive in the manner of a good wife of the period (particularly when it comes to sex) she's obviously content. As summer turns to fall, however, E...