The Soft Skin

Director: François Truffaut
Year Released: 1964
Rating: 2.0

Adultery by the numbers: well-known intellectual (Jean Desailly) with a wife and young daughter becomes smitten with an airline stewardess (Françoise Dorléac) and they meet for drinks in Portugal. Back in France, they continue their love affair, but he takes photographs of her (evidence!), his distant wife notices he's out late and never home (suspicious!), he starts bickering with his new lover (trouble!), his wife finds the photos (fury!) and goes from placid to crazed (revenge!). While Truffaut is an exceptional filmmaker with immense talent, not even he can do much to liven up the cardboard material or begin to convince me that Dorléac would fall for Desailly unless of course super hot French women are all easily wooed by boorish, average-looking academics. If that is indeed the case, however, I should probably brush up on my bonjours and mercis, fake expertise on Proust and Rimbaud and pack my bags immediately.