writers_reign Did ever a movie director - Jacques Feyder (Francoise Rosay), Christian Jacque (Martine Carol), Alain Resnais (Sabine Azima), Claude Chabrol (Stephane Audran) - compose a more elegant romantic valentine to his wife than Robert Guideguian does here and was ever a wife more deserving than the utterly captivating Ariane Ascaride. She is working here with her two long-standing leading men, Gerard Meylan and Jean-Pierre Darroussin and they are, as ever, outstanding, she is also reunited with Lola Naymark with whom she co-starred in the magnificent Brodeuses, but this is Ascarides film and she grasps it with both hands and wide eyes as a child grasps a coloured soap bubble. Time and again Guideguian fills the frame with that beautiful face and the smile that could light a small city. Mercifully free of the political comment that tends to permeate his oeuvre this is a total delight and I can't wait to watch it again and own it on DVD.