''Leaving'' () is a 2009 French film directed by Catherine Corsini, written by Corsini and Gaeelle Mace, and starring Sergi López, Kristin Scott Thomas and

Yvan Attal Yvan Attal (; ; born ) is a French actor, scriptwriter and film director. Life and career Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to History of the Jews in Algeria, Algerian-Jewish parents, he grew up in the outskirts of Paris. His acting debut was in Éri ...

Plot

Suzanne ( Kristin Scott Thomas), is a well-to-do married woman and mother of two in the south of France. Her idle

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

lifestyle begins to depress her, and she decides to go back to work as a

physiotherapist Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is a healthcare profession, as well as the care provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through patient education, physical intervention, disease preventio ...

. Her husband, Samuel (

), agrees to fix up a treatment room for her in their back yard. When Suzanne meets Ivan ( Sergi López), a Spanish ex-con hired to do the building, their mutual attraction is sudden and violent. After multiple trysts with Ivan, Suzanne confesses the affair to her husband and promises to give it up, but finds she cannot. She finally decides to give up everything and live to the fullest her all-engulfing passion for Ivan, but her husband will not let go of her and her daughter rejects her, although her son stays connected to her. The new couple soon faces severe financial problems, some of them caused by Samuel: when Suzanne's credit card is rejected, she is forced to sell her Cartier watch at a gas station. In their extreme need, Suzanne and Ivan rob Samuel's house of its paintings and valuables but Ivan is arrested when he fences the stolen goods for them. Suzanne tries to convince her husband that she was solely responsible for the burglary, and that she only took what was hers. She offers to do anything to keep Ivan out of jail, and her husband tells her that, if she comes home, Ivan will be free. At this dilemma, she faints. Back in their home, Suzanne is distant with her family, yet tolerant of her husband's sexual advances. Soon, though, she takes a rifle and shells from a closet and kills Samuel as he sleeps. After driving through the night, she is eventually reunited with Ivan at the ruined house in the hills they had once dreamt of restoring. They embrace and she sobs hysterically. In the distance, a police siren can be heard.

Cast

* Kristin Scott Thomas as Suzanne * Sergi López as Ivan *

as Samuel * Bernard Blancan as Rémi * Aladin Reibel as Dubreuil * Alexandre Vidal as David * Daisy Broom as Marion * Berta Esquirol as Berta * Gérard Lartigau as Lagache *

Philippe Laudenbach Philippe Laudenbach (31 January 1936 – 22 April 2024) was a French actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films from 1963. Career Philippe Laudenbach, the nephew of Pierre Fresnay (born Peter Laudenbach), was trained at the French Natio ...

as Samuel's father * Geneviève Casile as Samuel's mother * Michèle Ernou as Madame Aubouy

Reception

The film has been moderately well received by critics, and currently holds a rating of 69% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

.Leaving (Partir) (2009)
Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 18 January 2013

References

Notes

External links

* * * * * {{Catherine Corsini 2009 films 2009 romantic drama films Films about adultery in France 2000s Catalan-language films Films directed by Catherine Corsini 2000s French-language films French romantic drama films Films produced by Michel Seydoux 2000s English-language films 2000s French films English-language romantic drama films