Word: bujold
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Performing with suspended, comatose bodies is a tough assignment for any actress. No wonder Genevieve Bujold read the script of Coma, based on Robin Cook's bestselling chiller, and said, "Oh, my God, I don't know about this!" But her doctor-writer friend Michael Crichton (The Andromeda Strain), author of the screenplay and the director, cajoled her into accepting the part. Bujold plays a surgical resident in a large Boston hospital who wonders why certain patients never regain consciousness after routine operations-and unravels a diabolical traffic in human organs. To inject as much realism as possible...
...calling his first U.S. production Another Man, Another Woman. It is not, however, a sequel to his soft-focus romance between a French racing driver and a young widow. This time the story takes place in the American West in the 1870s. A French immigrant wife (Genevieve Bujold) arrives by stagecoach in dusty Arizona. After cleaning up in a steaming pay tub (a cold bath costs 50 and a hot bath 100), she meets and becomes involved with a young veterinarian (James Caan). LeLouch says he nearly called it A Man, A Woman...
...dapper fellow portrayed by Belmondo, we learn, has lost a fortune thanks to his inept uncle, who has speculated away his inheritance. Strike one against the inanity of capitalism. Meanwhile the woman Belmondo pines for, acted by a ravishing Genevieve Bujold, has become engaged to a silly looking suitor who promises nothing but a fat checking account. Strike two. So what is a clearly superior gentleman to do about this unappreciative bourgeois system of values? Strike back, of course. The suitor's fortune rests on his family's jewels, so Belmondo lifts them. His career in crime has taken wing...
Belmondo's great backlash at the money-grubbing world has palled. We miss the scheming smiles and gleaming winks he projects so well, and even Bujold is having trouble lighting his Don Juan-ish spark. In a very late scene a telegram summons Belmondo to his uncle's deathbed, and he finally receives the chance to take revenge on the skinflint. He forges himself into the old man's will while his uncle helplessly looks on, eating his heart out but too sick to call for help. Yet even here Malle's directorial listlessness--intentional, no doubt, but unendingly strange...
...dawn breaks on the caper that began the film, we see the dark rings under Belmondo's eyes and face the ugly mess of burglary for the first time in broad daylight. The whole business is not such a lark after all; Belmondo doesn't feel very sexy. Not Bujold, we now understand, not Belmondo's forged inheritance, not even a socio-economic destiny can satisfy this man's soul. Only his crowbar. The overall conception may strike us as weak, but we can now account for Malle's depressed editing. So if you feel that Malle as director...