Set in 1860’s Paris, Therese is a tragic love story about a loveless marriage that goes horribly wrong. Tom plays Camille, the young man and cousin of his unhappy wife Therese (Elizabeth Olson). Therese feels trapped in a life she never wanted until she meets Camille’s childhood friend Laurent (Oscar Isaac). Together, Therese and Laurent fall into a love that leads to tragic consequences. Therese and Laurent plot to murder Camille so they can live happily together but their guilt turns them against each other and Therese finds herself in another loveless marriage.
We certainly didn’t know what to expect before watching the film, we knew nothing of the plot and was shocked by how dark the tone of the film turned out to be. Despite the numerous scenes of their love and sexual affair, the film carried a quite ominous theme and we found ourselves quite uncomfortable throughout most of it.
Perhaps the best performance was from Jessica Lange playing Madame Raquin, Camille’s mother, who is driven to a vegetative state from the grief of his death.
The music composed by Gabriel Yared was our favourite part of the film! It added to the ominous tone through a very minor melodic musical theme, almost with a essence of John Williams’ dramatics. Therese took us on a roller-coaster of emotions, love, fear, anger, and guilt to name a few, but we feel it didn’t live up to expectations most films have for the Toronto International Film Festival.
To be brutally honest, we’re just not okay with being haunted by the image of Tom Felton’s corpse for the rest of our lives.
RATING: 2 Tom Feltons’ out of 5 Tom Feltons’
Guest Bloggers are Laura Nicolucci and Alex Brown from the Late Night Low Down – watch their video review below!
