Suite Française (film)

Plot

In Nazi-occupied France, Lucille Angellier and her domineering mother-in-law await news of her husband. A regiment of German soldiers arrives, and promptly moves into the homes of the villagers. Lucille tries to ignore Bruno, the German commander coopting her house, but he soon infatuates her.

Conception and adaptation

On 9 November 2006, Michael Fleming from Variety reported that the rights to Irène Némirovsky's novel Suite Française (written during the Nazi occupation of France but published posthumously in 2004) had been acquired by Universal Pictures. Ronald Harwood, who wrote the script for The Pianist, was set to write the screenplay, with Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall producing the film. The following year, TF1 Droits Audiovisuels acquired the rights to the novel from publisher Éditions Denoël. The novel was then adapted for the screen by Saul Dibb and Matt Charman, with Dibb directing. The film was given a budget of €15 million ($20 million), which Mick Brown from The Daily Telegraph noted was "big by European, if not American, standards".

Dibb focused his adaptation on book two of Némirovsky's novels, which explores the relationships between the French women and the German soldiers who occupied their village, in particular the story of Lucile Angellier, who is waiting for news of her husband, when a German officer is billeted in her home. Of his intentions, Dibb explained "in the making of the film I want to capture this strong sense of immediacy and authenticity. The action should feel that it's happening now – urgent, tense, spontaneous, made with no benefit of hindsight – like we've discovered a time capsule. And very far from a safe, stuffy period piece." Dibb used the story of the novel's discovery by Némirovsky's daughter, Denise Epstein, to book-end the film. Némirovsky's original manuscript is shown during the credits. Epstein died shortly before production began, but she read drafts of the script.

Casting

Variety's Jeff Sneider reported in October 2012 that actress Michelle Williams was in talks to star in Suite Française as the protagonist Lucille Angellier. Shortly after she joined the project, Kristin Scott Thomas was attached to appear as Lucille's "domineering" mother-in-law. In an interview with Moviefone's Erin Whitney, Scott Thomas commented that the character was similar to herself. In November, Baz Bamigboye from the Daily Mail confirmed that Matthias Schoenaerts was in the final stages of negotiations to play Lucille's love interest, Bruno.

On 14 June 2013, Dominic Patten from Deadline.com reported that actor Sam Riley had joined the cast as a French soldier called Benoit. Riley's wife Alexandra Maria Lara also joined the cast, along with fellow actresses Margot Robbie as Celine and Ruth Wilson as Madeleine. Actors Tom Schilling and Lambert Wilson will also appear in the film as Kurt Bonnet and Viscount de Montmort respectively. Harriet Walter has been cast as Viscountess de Montmort, while Eileen Atkins will appear as Denise Epstein and Cédric Maerckx as Gaston Angellier.

Filming

Principal photography commenced on 24 June 2013. The shoot lasted until late August. The cast and crew spent eight weeks shooting in Belgium and eight days in France. From 10 July, filming took place in the village of Marville in the Meuse department. In August, the cast and crew spent three-and-a-half weeks filming scenes in a house in Belgium. Dibb commented that the hot weather helped create "its own weird, uncomfortable, claustrophobic atmosphere which you hope is going to feed into the atmosphere of the scenes." Leo Barraclough from Variety reported that principal photography was completed on 2 September 2013.

Costumes and make-up

English costume designer Michael O'Connor, who previously worked with Dibb on The Duchess, designed and created the clothing for the film. O'Connor used photographs, magazines and movies of the time to make the clothing and accessories as authentic as possible. His major influences were Némirovsky's novel, which describes the clothing in detail, and Jean Renoir's 1939 film The Rules of the Game. The costumes use authentic French fabrics from Paris. The film's countryside setting led Jenny Shircore, the hair and make-up designer for the production, to invoke a sense of sobriety in place of glamor. Shircore used quite little make-up on Williams, who understood she must look quite "natural, simple, in a sense resigned."

Music

French composer Alexandre Desplat was originally attached to compose the film's musical score. Dibb wanted Bruno's piano piece to be composed before shooting began, and he wanted it to be played during the film as "a developing theme" and then at the end in its full form. Desplat wrote Bruno's Theme, but was unable to write the final score for the entire film and was replaced by Rael Jones. Jones's score was recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in London. Sony Classical released the soundtrack album on 16 March 2015. It features original music composed by Jones, a piano piece composed by Desplat and songs performed by Lucienne Boyer, Josephine Baker and Rosita Serrano. Dibb explained that music plays a crucial part in the film and called the score "subtle and atmospheric."

Release

In May 2013, it was announced that The Weinstein Company would cover the U.S., Latin America, Australia, Russia and Germany territories for distribution. The first trailer for the film was released on 24 October 2014. The film was released theatrically in the UK on 13 March 2015, and on DVD on 27 July 2015.

The film didn't have a theatrical release in the U.S. and premiered on Lifetime on 10 October 2016.

Reception

Suite Française earned £503,928 upon its opening weekend in the United Kingdom. The film opened to 425 locations and landed at number four in the UK box office top ten. The following week the film played at a further 21 screens and earned £268,607 for a total of £1,293,408. It fell three places to seven in the box office chart. As of August 2015, Suite Française has earned over $9 million worldwide.

The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 76% of 29 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6 out of 10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 63 out of 100 based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews." The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gave the film two stars out of five and likened the central love story to "a damp haddock on a slab". He continued, "This adaptation of Irène Némirovsky's acclaimed bestseller about French folk collaborating with the Nazis is flabby, sugary – and passion-free." Emma Dibdin from Digital Spy gave the film three stars and commented, "Suite Française works far better as the story of a community in flux than it does as a brooding romance, the shifting loyalties between villagers and soldiers escalating towards a somewhat compelling third act."

Anna Smith from Empire rated the film "good" and said "Sterling performances lift the occasionally soapy storyline in this semi-successful adaptation." Variety's Guy Lodge found the film "fusty but enjoyably old-fashioned", adding "iffy scripting decisions can't thwart the romantic allure of this handsomely crafted, sincerely performed wartime weeper." Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Leslie Felperin's consensus was "[Suite Française] has sturdy production values, a tony cast and middlebrow tastefulness up the wazoo, but barely any soul, bite or genuine passion."

The "Desire" trailer for Suite Française created by eOne Films International and Create Advertising London earned a nomination for Best Foreign Romance Trailer at the 16th Golden Trailer Awards. Jones's score was nominated for the Public Choice Award at the 2015 World Soundtrack Awards.