Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2000
Fidelity (2000 film)
Buy Fidelity (2000 film) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Fidelity' is a 2000 French drama film written and directed by Andrzej uawski and starring Sophie Marceau, Pascal Greggory, and Guillaume Canet. Based on Madame de La Fayette's 1678 novel 'La Princesse de Clves', the film is about a talented photographer who lands a lucrative job in Paris with a scandal-mongering tabloid and becomes romantically involved with an eccentric children's book publisher while resisting the sexual advances of another photographer. Filmed on location in Paris, 'Fidelity' received the Cabourg Romantic Film Festival Award for Best Actress (Sophie Marceau) and the Golden Swann Award (Andrzej Zulawski).
Plot
Talented Canadian photographer Cllia (Sophie Marceau) lands a lucrative job in Paris with a tabloid called 'La Verite' run by scandal-mongerer Rupert MacRoi (Michel Subor). Cllia's mother once dated MacRoi years ago while working as a cabaret singer. Once she became pregnant with Cllia, she stopped seeing MacRoi and married Cllia's father. Accompanying her daughter to Paris, she tells Cllia that her strongest principle was honour, and encourages her to get married and settle down.
In Paris Cllia gives a television interview and talks about her two successful books of photography: a "study of absence" showing empty streets and deserted landscapes, and a study of fashion models without showing their faces. While walking the Paris streets taking photographs, Cllia meets Clve (Pascal Greggory), a bumbling middle-aged children's book publisher who is preparing to marry MacRoi's wealthy daughter to bolster his flagging publishing house. Clve is immediately attracted to Cllia and invites her back to his office where they make love. Afterwards, she meets Clve's brother Bernard, a Catholic bishop, and their father.
At the 'La Verite' offices, Cllia finds most of her co-workers to be disillusioned and perverseall knowing that they "earn their keep on dirt." At her first assignment covering a hockey team that MacRoi recently purchased, Cllia finds herself in the team's locker room surrounded by naked players celebrating their victory. MacRoi is there and after teasing her about her taking photos of the naked players asks if she'll join his family for a dinner party. Before she leaves, Cllia has sex with one of the players.
At MacRoi's dinner party, Clve loudly declares his love for Cllia before his entire family, including his fianc, Genivre MacRoi, the sister of Rupert MacRoi. Genivre responds by calling off their wedding and hitting him. Later that evening, following MacRoi's announcement of the purchase of Clve's publishing company, Clve's father collapses and dies while his son and Cllia look on. Clve asks Cllia never to leave him. At the funeral, Clve confides in Cllia his fears that MacRoi will not respect his family's publishing house now that he owns it, saying, "He massacres all that is upright and inneficient, delicate and noble." Soon after, Cllia and her mother move into Clve's house. He gives her his mother's engagement ring. In bed she reads lines from a W. H. Auden poem, "This like a dream keeps other time, and daytime is the loss of this, for time is inches and the heart's changes, where ghost has haunted lost and wanted. But this was never a ghost's endeavor, nor finished this, was ghost at ease, and till it pass love shall not near the sweetness here nor sorrow take his endless look."
Cllia's first portfolio of photos for 'La Verite' creates a sensation and she is congratulated by her colleaguesall except Nmo (Guillaume Canet), a sexy young photographer who promptly propositions her upon their first encounter. In spite of her sexual attraction to Nmo, Cllia marries Clve in a ceremony marred somewhat by the presence of 'La Verite' photographers and reporters, including Nmo. After the wedding, Nmo leaves his girlfriend, Ina (Eda Darcque), a former African princess and Parisian prostitute whom he met investigating the illegal organ trade. He delivers his wedding photos to Cllia's home, handing them to her mother. Upset at the intrusion, and suspecting her daughter is having an affair, Cllia's mother collapses and soon dies.
Nmo continues to follow Cllia, even taking photos of her in her house making love to her husband. Later she learns that Nmo was given this assignment by MacRoi who is looking to find dirt on Clve. Although she continues to see Nmo, Cllia resolutely keeps to her wedding vows in the face of her suitor's continued advances. She travels by train to Normandy to attend a motorcycle event in which Nmo is a participant. During the race Nmo crashes, and Cllia rushes to his side, revealing her feelings for him. At the celebration afterwards, Nmo gets drunk and loud, talking about his investigation into the illegal organ trade and the shady International characters involved. Later that night he and Cllia take the train back to Paris together.
After Nmo is attacked by a gang hired by the illegal organ traffickers, Cllia asks him to show her the world he is investigatinga dark world of brutal human fighting to the death. Throughout their time together, Nmo continues his advances toward her, but Cllia resists. When she returns to her home, Clve is convinced she is having an affair, despite her promises that she's never lied to him and will never be unfaithful to him. After learning that his brother the bishop has run off with a married woman, Clve says he will join his brother in Plougastel-Daoulas in Brittany at The Happy Inn. After they make love Clve writes on the bathroom mirror, "Oh but what worm am I the victim of that you then unabashed did what I never wished confessed another love and I submissive, felt unwanted and went out?" After he leaves, Cllia calls the offices of 'La Verite' to inform them of Bishop Bernard's "love-nest" in Brittany, and soon the scandal erupts in the news. Cllia watches the television coverage of his public humiliation. Clve does not return to his wife, and after sleeping with a transvestite prostitute, he calls 'La Verite' asking that they track his wife who he believes is two-timing him.
Meanwhile, Cllia comes to Nmo's house, where assassins hired by the organ traffickers blast the place with gunfire, but Nmo and Cllia are able to defend themselves and escape. Soon after, Cllia attends a publicity session with MacRoi and a new partner. MacRoi presents Nmo with a new expensive motorcycle for his work covering Cllia. During the session, assassins again attempt to kill Nmo, and during the attack both Nmo and Clve are injured. MacRoi is killed by a shard of glass in his eye. After the funeral, MacRoi's daughter reorganizes the company, intending to continue the scandal-mongering. She also fires Cllia, who later begs her husband to come back to her, but he will not reconsider. On their way out of the building he falls down a flight of steps and dies on the way to the hospital, with Cllia at his side. At the funeral she avoids Nmo's advances and leaves Paris. Sometime later, Nmo is interviewed on television and talks about his new portfolio dedicated to Cllia, who has disappeared.
A few years later, while taking photographs in a monastery, Cllia by chance sees the beginning of an English-language MacRoi Production film called 'The Princess of Cleve' about her life, directed by Nmo. She laughs as she discovers Nmo's first name, Fernand, revealed in the opening credits. Before leaving the monastery, she places her wedding rings on a tree branch, while the ghost of her late husband looks on. Cllia can only say, "Forgive me." He smiles and retrieves the rings while she weeps.
Cast
* Sophie Marceau as Cllia
* Pascal Greggory as Clve
* Guillaume Canet as Nmo
* Michel Subor as Rupert MacRoi
* Magali Nol as La mre de Cllia
* Marc Franois as Saint-Andr
* dith Scob as Diane
* Marina Hands as Julia
* Manuel Le Livre as Jean
* Aurlien Recoing as Bernard
* Jean-Charles Dumay as Antoine
* Guy Trjan as Julien Clve
* Eda Darcque as Ina
* Julie Brochen as Genivre
* Armande Alta as Mrs. MacRoi
* William Mesguich as David
* Ccile Richard as Slna
* Bruno Lpez as Convive photographe
* Isabelle Malin as Amie de Clve
* Alain Guillo as Ami de Clve
* Olivier Bony as Mdecin
* Philippe Dormoy as Prof de Nmo
* Guy-Pierre Bennet as Gianfranco Giuliani
* Lionel Brmond as Technicien rgie
* Pascal Tokatlian as Fleuriste
* Thomas Marty as Joueur de hockey
* Franoise Geier as Nurse
* Johann Meunier as Petit ami de Bernard
* Alice Carel as Serveuse rousse
* Andr Valardy as Homme aux claquettes
* Chantal Pelliconi as Amie de Clve 2
* Stanislas Januskiewicz as Ami Clve 2
* Xawery Zulawski as Coureur Speedway
* Sylvain Maury as Travesti
* Oury Milshtein as Voisin
Awards and nominations
* 2000 Cabourg Romantic Film Festival Award for Best Actress (Sophie Marceau) 'Won'
* 2000 Cabourg Romantic Film Festival Golden Swann Award (Andrzej Zulawski) 'Won'
* 2000 International Steadicam Award for Best Steadicam Shot (Adam Rzanski) 'Won'
References
Buy Fidelity (2000 film) now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 2000