This film was released 12th January 2018, and is no longer screening.

This film is F-Rated. Find out more here.

Exclusively at IFI

An adaptation of the 1883 Guy de Maupassant novel, A Woman’s Life represents a successful change of pace for Stéphane Brizé following his award-winning The Measure of a Man (2015). The film begins in rural Normandy of 1819; Jeanne (Judith Chemla), young and rather naïve, has returned from a convent education to live with her parents (played with effortless grace by Yolande Moreau and Jean- Pierre Darroussin), who arrange for her marriage to a local nobleman, Julien de Lamare (Swann Arlund).

Brizé’s elegantly austere film charts a slow and painful process of disillusionment over three decades as the people Jeanne loves most betray her. Presented in square-like Academy ratio with a restless camera style, the film is bracingly honest in its depiction of the realities of 19th century life and the cruel restrictions women were forced to endure.

Tickets for the 20:45 screening on Tuesday 16th are just €7.50 for IFI and Alliance Française members.

(Notes by David O’Mahony.)

Don’t forget we now schedule weekly.