Mrs. Ross, in the Bryan Forbes film The Whisperers (1967), is an elderly woman who lives alone and whose mind is leaving her. She is often ill-treated. Based on a novel by Robert Nicolson, this is another Sixties British piece about the working class, with concentration on human callousness.

The technical-artistic efforts of director Forbes and editor Anthony Harvey are estimable. So is Forbes’s scriptwriting except that the movie’s finish minimizes loneliness. The celebrated Dame Edith Evans is magnificent in the difficult part of Mrs. Ross. There is a persistent simple dignity in the intelligent portrayal here. As the husband who abandoned Mrs. Ross, Eric Portman is superlative.

All Your Faces (or, translated from the French, I Will Always See Your Faces, 2023) reflects the attention-paying of filmmaker Jeanne Henry to Western therapeutic culture. She uses French actors in the roles of crime victims and crime perpetrators who converse with each other in what is called a Restorative Justice project. Actors such as Elodie Bouchez play therapy professionals and volunteers for RJ, a social creation which in France does indeed exist. The purpose is, well, “healing,” although one character mentions that restorative-justice represents something that people in our time detest.

A victim named Chloe (Adele Exarchopoulos) could have easily detested it, but I don’t believe she does. Sexually molested as a child by her half-brother, Chloe agrees to meet with him. Counselor Judith (Bouchez) makes the mistake of mentioning forgiveness to Chloe, which angers her, and to be sure Chloe does not forgive her half-brother.

Faces is sometimes moving despite Henry’s personal detachment from the goings-on. She offers no view on the efficacy of the “dialogue.” Yet crime victims here do seem to need psychological healing; they are traumatized. Thefts have occurred (there are no murderers) and not without physical injury. The film is fascinating—not quite flawless but still very good. And although a contempt in many quarters for restorative-justice is inevitable, never do we feel contempt for any of Henry’s characters.

(In French with English subtitles)

Such actors as Lou de Laage and Melvil Poupaud are so strong and convincing they deserve a more successful artwork to be in than Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance (Stroke of Luck, 2023). The criticisms of Armond White about the film are spot-on: “Allen still excuses infidelity as no big deal,” the infidelity being that of de Laage’s Fanny. And he knows how woefully bad Allen’s plot is.

I, furthermore, wish to add that the film is philosophically fatuous (and boring). After all these years, Allen should be a somewhat better writer than he is. Blue Jasmine should have inspired him into deeper study and effort. But no. The French-made Coup de Chance is the one of the weakest French-made movies I have seen.

(In French with English subtitles)