Acclaimed theater director Des McAnuff made his feature-film directorial debut with this period comedy-drama adapted from Honore de Balzac’s novel La Cousine Bette (1846) about a jealous and bitter spinster who attempts to destroy the romance between her niece and a Polish sculptor. In Paris of the 1840s, spinster Bette Fisher (Jessica Lange) steps in to “take care” of her relatives after a decline in the Hulot family fortunes, mainly due to wastrel Hector Hulot (Hugh Laurie). After penniless sculptor Wenceslas Steinbach (Aden Young) marries Hector’s daughter, Hortense (Kelly Macdonald), Bette schemes and plots, drawing Hector’s mistress, music-hall star Jenny Cadine (Elisabeth Shue), into her web by arranging for wealthy Cesar Crevel (Bob Hoskins) to become Jenny’s benefactor. Filmed at locations in and around Bordeaux. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
The movie is not respectful like a literary adaptation, but wicked with gossip and social satire. (“The 19th century as we know it was invented by Balzac,” Oscar Wilde said.) Between 1846, when the movie opens, and 1848, when it reaches a climax, popular unrest breaks out in Paris. Angry proletarians pursue the carriages of the rich down the streets, and mobs tear up cobblestones and build barricades. Balzac’s point is that history has dropped an anvil on his spoiled degenerates. But the plot stays resolutely at the level of avarice, and it is fascinating to watch Cousin Bette as she lies to everyone, pulls the strings of her puppets, and distributes justice and revenge like an angry god. By the end, as she smiles upon an infant and the child gurgles back, the movie has earned the monstrous irony of this image. – Roger Ebert
Starring Jessica Lange, Elisabeth Shue, Bob Hoskins, Hugh Laurie and Aden Young.