The Beautiful Person

The Beautiful Person (French: La belle personne) is a 2008 French drama television film directed by Christophe Honoré.^[1]

Plot

The plot is related to the seventeenth-century French novel La Princesse de Clèves. After the death of her mother, Junie (Léa Seydoux) transfers to the school that her cousin Mathias (Esteban Carjaval-Alegria) attends. She catches the attention of a lot of people, especially Otto (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) and Nemours (Louis Garrel), her Italian teacher. In Italian class, a record of Maria Callas singing Lucia plays, which causes Junie to rush out crying, leaving her affairs behind. Nemours sees a photo of her taken by another student and swipes it. After this, Nemours pursues her even though she has mixed feelings about it. He is so enamored by her that he breaks off his relationships with Florence Perrin, a teacher (Valerie Lang), and Marie, a student (Agathe Bonitzer). Nemours switches seats with Mathias during a field trip. Marie sees a letter left on the seat and it spreads throughout the student body. This letter is a love letter that all of the students think was written by Nemours. Junie, upon reading the letter, becomes very upset, believing that Nemours is in love with somebody else. Mathias goes to Nemours and explains that it was his letter from another boy named Martin and asked him to say that it belonged to the teacher. One of Otto's friends from the Russian language class is asked to spy on her after Junie acts cold to Otto and sees Nemours acting tender to Junie. He mistakes it for kissing and Otto confronts Junie about the misunderstanding. She denies it and goes home. Otto kills himself the next day by jumping from a very high floor at school. After Otto's suicide, Junie skips school for three weeks coming only after Nemours tells Mathias that he will be taking sick leave until the end of the semester. Nemours follows Junie around and she decides to approach him. He asks for some time to talk to her and they are seen running around the city like children. He takes her back to his room where she starts talking about love. He takes her home where they set a date for 5pm the day after next. Nemours waits till seven, then calls Mathias. He comes down and tells him that she left yesterday and is not allowed to say where and to forget about her. She also said she never wanted to see him again. Junie is seen on a ship departing for somewhere else.

Cast

In parenthesis are the corresponding characters from La Princesse de Clèves.

• Louis Garrel : Jacques Nemours (The Duke de Nemours)
• Léa Seydoux : Junie de Chartres (The Princess de Clèves)
• Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet : Otto Clèves (The Prince de Clèves)
• Esteban Carvajal Alegria : Matthias de Chartres (The Vidame de Chartres)
• Anaïs Demoustier : Catherine (The Queen Catherine de Médicis)
• Agathe Bonitzer : Marie Valois (The Queen Dauphine)
• Simon Truxillo : Henri Valois (The King Henri II)
• Jacob Lyon : Jacob (the Knight de Guise)
• Tanel Derard : Tanel
• Martin Simeon : Martin
• Jeanne Audiard : Jeanne
• Esther Garrel : Esther
• Clotilde Hesme : Mme. de Tournon, The Librarian (Mme. de Tournon)
• Valérie Lang : Florence Perrin, History Teacher and ex-lover of Nemours
• Chantal Neuwirth : Nicole, Hostess of the café Sully
• Jean-Michel Portal : Estouteville, The Math Teacher (Estouteville)
• Dominic Gould : The English Teacher
• Alice Butaud : The Russian Teacher
• Matilde Incerti : The French Teacher
• Chiara Mastroianni : Girl in the café Sully. (Actress who played the Princess de Clèves in La Lettre)

Trivia

• The movie was filmed in four weeks between 27 December 2007 and the 30 January 2008, at the Lycée Molière, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Several of the scenes were filmed in the streets of Paris and in the metro stations Passy and Quai de la gare.

• The actress Chiara Mastroianni makes a cameo while Junie is sitting in the café. She played the equivalent character to Junie in another film adaptation, La Lettre, of The Princess of Cleves.

References

External links

• The Beautiful Person at the Internet Movie Database