"Inscrutability" might be in Trintignant's elements, but encumbered by the sign of the times, viz. A 1970s male wish fulfillment that mistakes sexual liberation for masculine omnipotence, his commonplace sex appeal and wooden bluntness undercuts the film's games of seduction, which makes his wooden bluntness aloofness even more grating to stomach. All those women are compartmentalized into a certain type, Birkin's Marie-Paule is an ingénue of easy virtue and a masochist streak, Bolkan's Flora is an icy, misandrist diva implied with a sapphic bent, Marquet's Madame Hermens is a miserable, lonely dowager, Blain's movie star Shirley Douglas is a hollow sex object, only Schneider's Roberte asserts herself better, a married woman who can equal Nicolas's no-strings-attached evasion with her own unfussy intelligence, but look at her denouement!
Read my full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, please google it, thanks.
