Review of Damage (2012) by Alon L — 05 Apr 2008

Common sense has it that the British cannot feel true passion; even Shakespeare had to choose Italy for his love stories. And it takes the French --both director Louis Malle and star Juliette Binoche, in a harrowing performance-- to kindle it, but all-British Irons proves remarkably flammable material.

Passion fills the screen not only in the graphic love scenes, remarkable on their own, but also especially in the silent, riveting looks that punctuate the characters' journey to destruction. And, although they may not know it, it's destruction that they seek; punishment for a forbidden childhood passion in her case, punishment for almost inhuman dispassion in his.

Great acting and lucid direction make a profoundly disturbing movie out of what would in lesser hands be melodrama.