Amazon.com Essentials:
While many ugly Americans best remember Gerard Depardieu from
late-'80s Hollywood fluff (and the less said about Green Card the
better), his art-house reputation as a legitimate, conscientious actor
was more than mere hype. The solid Return of Martin Guerre (Le
Retour de Martin Guerre) stands as Depardieu's personal high-water
mark: here, he was handed a well-written, nuanced role--one inviting a
balanced display of intelligence, charismatic cool, and pure
passion--and he makes the most of it. The narrative, set in medieval France
during the Hundred Years' War, follows the alleged homecoming of a
soldier after many years of absence. His wife (a structurally difficult
role to portray with any skill, but played gamely here by the fetching
Nathalie Baye) finds him such an improvement--both in the sack and
otherwise--from the husband who left for the front that she ignores
the villagers' suspicions that he is an impostor. The costumes and
scenery are quite a bit better, and more historically responsible, than
what we've all come to expect from period drama, and the logical flaws
and obvious questions begged by the plot mechanics are smoothed out by
director Daniel Vigne's steady hand with story art and cinematic pacing.
The film was remade in English, and updated to the Reconstruction, in 1993 as
Sommersby, starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster. See this
original instead. --Miles Bethany
