(1998) Based on Honoré de Balzac's novel, this satire begins in Paris, 1846, ending two years later. On her death bed, Adeline (Geraldine Page) requests a favor of her cousin Bette Fisher (Jessica Lange) to take care of her family. "I promise I'll take care of them," says Bette. "I'll take care of them all." And oh how she does take care of them - each and every one of them.

Bette, an old maid, whose life and youthful love had been sacrificed to Adeline's advantage, disguises her bitter jealousies behind an appearance of good will. Implying his assumption of her happiness with her lot, Baron Hector Pierre Hulot (Hugh Laurie), Adeline's husband, says matter-of-factly to his cousin: "You've lived all these years without love." She turns down his offer of becoming the housekeeper after thinking he was about to propose marriage.

A young artist living above her room has been surviving on cheese from her rat traps and a sip of wine; believing he will one day become famous as a sculptor, Bette makes a bargain with Wenceslas Steinbach (Aden Young), an orphaned, penniless, Polish count: she will use her meager savings to support him so long as he applies himself to his work, agrees to repay her when he obtains the means, and does her bidding. However, he quickly disobeys: after declining Bette's asking him to marry her, he becomes engaged to Hortense (Kelly MacDonald), the baron's daughter.

With the baron's recommendation, Wenceslas receives a major commission for a monumental sculpture; with the baron's approval, he marries Hortense in an extravagant wedding paid for with borrowed funds. During the festivities, Bette assures the bride: "I'm sure you'll have all the happiness you deserve."

Meanwhile, Bette has maneuvered the baron's former mistress, Jenny Cadine (Elisabeth Shue), a singer in the theater, into an affair with the wealthiest man in Paris, Cesar Crevel (Bob Hoskins). Further she has duped the baron's son Victorin, aware of his father's proliferate spending habits, into taking a loan of 75,000 francs at 25% interest from a moneylender. Later he will be threatened with the death of all his family members if he fails to make repayment.

Seven months later Hortense has a baby boy, but her father's reputation is ruined when his son-in-law's sculpture, long overdue, is a humiliatingly incomplete farce. Already burdened with debts in the tens of thousands, he must find a way to refund the ministry for the commission of 200,000 francs.

His daughter goes to Crevel, who previously had promised to pay her such a sum just to view her naked body, at the same time that Wenceslas goes to Jenny, who has made a devil's pact with Bette to steal Hortense's husband, for a loan. Unexpectedly Jenny falls in love with Wenceslas, forcing Bette's hand to pen a letter in Jenny's name, giving it to both Hortense (suggesting her husband's unfaithfulness) and the baron (making him think it was meant for him), who discover Wenceslas and Jenny together, naked and smeared with chocolate.

The mostly farcical tone of the events depicted in the film, doesn't prepare us for the harsh conclusion, including a stroke and a murder. As the workers revolt in the streets, resulting in Louis Philippe's abdication of the throne and the fall of the aristocrats with the formation of the National Assembly, I understand the significance of a peasant woman's bringing Baron Hulot's household to ruin; nevertheless, her success at turning her enemies into wretched victims, left me unable to feel any sympathy for such a hag's hubristic victory.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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