When a well-off wife interrupts her ennui to thank her husband for everything, be suspicious. In this brilliant portrait of marriage interruptus, a successful insurance broker, Charles (Michel Bouquet), suspects that his wife Hélène (Stéphane Audran) has a lover, and she does. Charles and Hélène have filled their lives with beautiful objects, including Hélène. But Chabrol, like Hitchcock, imbues all objects with tension-again, including Hélène. Charles is a latter-day Charles Bovary, the arriviste, settled in; useless in his caring, he becomes a sort of housecat to the mouse in the intrigue that ensues. When he pounces, he's more surprised than we are. This is a tale built from details and small movements, still-life and silence, habitual expressions and sidelong glances, all played out under Chabrol's cold eye and godlike pans. We follow, riveted and repelled, until the surprise ending makes us rethink the whole Charles and Hélène thing, an eternal return. (JB)