The Bridge

Bored French working class housewife Mina (the luminous Carole Bouquet) dreams away her '60s afternoons at the local flicks, where she and her son Tommy (Stanislas Crevillén) catch a glimpse of the people and places they'll likely never see. One afternoon she happens to sit next to handsome, world-wise chief engineer Matthias (Charles Berling), and soon the two are doing a horizontal pas de deux, much to the chagrin of Mina's construction worker hubby (co-director Gerard Depardieu), who happens to be laboring under the engineer as well. The French seem to never tire of the subject, but this self-billed "powerful story about the consequences of adultery" is no Scenes From a Marriage, and if it's true there are only fifty ways to leave your lover then we've surely seen them all by now. Well executed, but ultimately unnecessary. An optional purchase. (S. C. Sickles)