In Maigret and the Dead Lover, a commissioner investigates the murder of a former ambassador and its connection to a decades-long affair with a recently-widowed princess. Source: Australian Catholics.
This film is based on one of Georges Simenon’s original stories. As the titular detective Commissioner Jules Maigret, Podalydès does an excellent job in being ordinary and earnest in pursuit of results, dogged without being frenzied, wreathed in smoke as he considers the evidence, getting along with his team and enjoying domestic felicity with his wife.
There was a certain cosiness about this crime and its solving and thankfully little blood or guts.
A career diplomat, Monsieur Berthier-Lages, appears to have been killed by an intruder. His deaf housekeeper Jacotte (Alvaro) didn’t hear a thing and is not forthcoming about much, even though she has been in his employ for 46 years and has been his occasional lover.
This man has been writing letters to the woman he would have liked to have married for 50 years. It is an open secret that they are in communication, although they do not see each other as she, Princess Isabella de Vuynes, who signs her letters, is married.
Her husband dies in a riding accident, and the way is cleared for them to marry.
A few days later the diplomat is found dead in his study. He has been shot multiple times.
The detective work is slow and steady as the team considers different angles and what others have to gain. This reviewer liked Janvier (Guillot) who played Maigret’s burly offsider and the everyday sartorial raggedness of the team as compared to the crispness and social snootiness of the princess and her haughty self-important nephew, art dealer Philippe (Poitrenaux).
There was a real charm about this film, perhaps because it was not all guns blazing and a festival of gore. Lots to like in this French film. Recommended.
Review by Ann Rennie, Jesuit Media.
Maigret and the Dead Lover: Starring Denis Podalydès, Anne Alvaro, Irène Jacob, Manuel Guillot, Laurent Poitrenaux. Directed by Pascal Bonitzer. 80 minutes. Rated PG. (Mild themes).
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Maigret and the Dead Lover (Australian Catholics)
