2002: Isabelle Huppert and the "8 Women"
Friday, June 12, 2020 at 10:00AM As we march towards the Smackdown, we're also checking in with great supporting performances that weren't nominated. Here's Nick Taylor...
We've already discussed how Viola Davis had a spectacular 2002. But truth be told, it’s incredible how many actresses turned out multiple great performances in that film year: Samantha Morton headlined one of the best films of the past 20 years with intoxicating subtlety in Morvern Callar while delivering the most visceral, unsettling element of Minority Report. Maggie Gyllenhaal announced herself with a bang in Secretary and folded beautifully into the ensemble of Adaptation. Multiple cast members of The Hours gave equally memorable characterizations in other films - Meryl in Adaptation, Julianne in Far From Heaven, Miranda in Spider, Toni in About a Boy, and Claire in Igby Goes Down. (Side note: how wild is it that Nicole Kidman is the one who only made one movie that year?).
I’d argue Isabelle Huppert had the strongest one-two punch of any actress in 2002. Her ferocious, perverse, achingly lonely turn in The Piano Teacher ranks among the best acting feats of the ‘00s all by itself, and the fizzy, entertaining work she contributes to 8 Women is one of the funniest performances of a year defined by great comedic work...
Now, I know what you’re thinking: "8 women? 8 of them? 8? All played by some of the most famous French actresses in film history? Sign me up!" 8 Women is an adaptation of a 1958 murder mystery play, directed by François Ozon in stylistic homage to American melodrama auteurs like George Cukor, Vincent Minelli, and Douglas Sirk.
Oh, and did I mention it’s also a jukebox musical?
The plot, such as it is, opens with Gaby (Catherine Deneuve) returning from the train station with her eldest daughter Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen) in tow, free from school for winter break. They’re greeted by Gaby’s younger daughter Catherine (Ludevine Sanger), Gaby’s sister Augustine (Isabelle Huppert), wheelchair-bound matriarch Mamy (Danielle Derrioux), longtime cook Chanel (Firmine Richard), and new but experience maid Louise (Emmanuelle Beart). Suzon is most excited to catch up with her father Marcel, a plan that hits a bit of a snag after Louise discovers him dead in bed with a knife in his back. They soon find the phone lines have been cut and Gaby’s car sabotaged, trapping them on the property. They’re eventually snowed in too, but not before Marcel’s black-sheep sister Pierrette (Fanny Ardant) arrives, having received a mysterious phone call informing her of her brother’s murder. And that's just the set-up.
For all the plush entertainment 8 Women eagerly offers, the whole thing winds up being less fun than it wants to be. Ozon’s staging feels stymied at translating this play for the screen - so much of the story takes place in that huge living room, and his attempts to vary the framing and editing from its usual cadences just reads as shaking things up for its own sake. Similarly, his recreation of ‘50s melodrama aesthetics grasps the look and texture of those films without ever being as skillful at using all its color and artifice to tell its story. The piling-up of outrageous secrets might have more heft if these revelations felt as though they were actually building towards something.
This last bit might be compensated for by a particularly agile cast though at its best 8 Women's ensemble is only ever running on half a tank. Three of them rise above the challenge. Danielle Derrieux is a hoot, nailing some unexpected physical comedy and a truly deranged monologue that kicks off the last third of the film. Fanny Ardant, with her chic outfit and gorgeous hair, is instantly bewitching. And, more than anyone else, Ardant looks like she’s having a good time, and she’s able to make this into a character point rather than coasting on her (considerable) charisma.
Isabelle Huppert reaches even greater heights as the neurotic, perpetually unhappy Aunt Augustine. Taking inspiration from Augustine's tachycardia (a condition where one’s heartbeat has a resting rate of 100 bpm), Huppert burns through 8 Women, shooting off her dialogue so fast its amazing how much dissatisfaction and irritation she’s able to put into her line readings while still making them work as comedy. There’s nothing funnier than watching her wheedle Suzon into sharing the brioche Chanel has made for her as a welcome home present, only to swipe two of the three buns off her plate as soon as she agrees, cooing about how great they’ll taste with the chocolate in her room. She’s also the only actress who regularly attempts physical comedy, dashing around the house like a hurricane and holding her body to accentuate what an angular, rigid figure Augustine is. Huppert makes Augustine such an open mess of wounded self-pity and shrewish unhappiness that you wouldn’t believe she could keep anything about herself secret.
What elevates Huppert’s work beyond pure, spirited caricature, are the moments of sympathy and heartache she stirs in. She fully commits to her musical number “Message Personale”, Augustine’s requiem for her own loneliness and inability to connect. The tune imbues her character with a light melancholy and rare, early moment of self-awareness that Augustine dispels almost as soon as the song ends but Huppert wisely keeps track of. After learning a heartbreaking secret from her mother, she walks up to her room with her wasted life, and swipes everything off her dresser before crumpling in on herself. Augustine undergoes a massive transformation near the end of 8 Women, her look and affect completely different than the woman we’ve spent so much time with. It’s the kind of total reinvention that requires a strong actress, and Huppert strikes this new pose with the same seamless grace she’s held throughout. All she needs to do is saunter down the stairs and ask for a light, to let everyone know that this is a new Augustine they’ll just have to get used to.
Would that it were so simple for 8 Women itself to exist so casually. I wish more filmmakers would attempt to create something like 8 Women, which is far from perfect but takes plenty of admirable risks with tone and style, to say nothing of how much material it provides for high-caliber actresses to go nuts. If nothing else, Isabelle Hupper is giving us the most delicious, high-energy star turn in a film seemingly designed for great actressing that can't quite manage it across the board.
Huppert's sheer range of notes within this high-end farce, coupled with the massive difference in tone, demeanor, and severity between Aunt Augustine and The Piano Teacher's Erika Kohut is the kind of achievement an actress could plant an entire career on, yet Huppert has filled her filmography with smart, dangerous wrecks as vividly as Gena Rowlands. Maybe you prefer the two-fer of a different actress this year, and with options as rich as these you could hardly go wrong. But no one does it like Huppert, and that's a fact.
More on 2002
- Viola Davis's triple breakthrough
- Sandy Powell's costumes in Gangs of New York and Far From Heaven
- When Spain didn't submit Talk to Her to the Oscars
- That train scene from Unfaithful
- What was happening in pop culture?
- Supporting Actress Character Intros
- The Makeup in The Hours
- The Furniture: Frida's Mirrors and Diego's Murals
Reader Comments (12)
Great article. I love this movie but there is something a little off about it, not fully satisfying - and I appreciate your notes about what doesn't quite click. The nature of the ending does sort of limit everything else - without spoiling, it doesn't feel like a true mystery, both in the reveal and how the various details are structured along the way. And everyone gets exactly one song, it's almost too neat, tidy, and segmented.
Totally agree. I re-watched 8 Femmes during the lockdown and I thought Huppert was first among equals, although really it's churlish to pick her among the outstanding ensemble, each with her own beat, her own song, and moment to shine. But Augustine is a different beast, quite a force of nature, and one with a fully realised arc: from an uptight ball of abrasiveness one moment then sort of like a minx in the next. François Ozon mentioned in one interview that he always views Huppert's acting as similar to Garbo so he decided to cast her in a role that's the opposite of the characters she's usually known for: a hyper-kinetic physical-comedy character. I want to see Huppert do more of these characters in films. The two recent ones I remembered seeing her do a version of Augustine were both on tv: as the eccentric director in The Romanoffs, and her stint in Dix pour cent aka "Call My Agent" playing a variation of herself.
Speaking of 8 Femmes, someone posted outtakes from the film where Huppert cannot keep a straight face around the 3:30 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLaYD-Ty7Rw
This movie is a lot of fun and Huppert is a delight in it. It's probably heresy to say - but I think I like her better in this than in The Piano Teacher? It's such an unexpected but just right performance.
I like what Dave S. said about the film feeling a bit too neat/tidy, that's a good description for it, but I still think it's a really fun watch. A rewatch has been on my to-do list for a minute now, so I'll take this article as a sign that I need to get to it!
Huppert acted circles around Kidman. ( who. Won )
Moore and Streep should both had nods for The Hours.
Huppert is indeed great in this film. I ended up enjoying the film a lot especially as the film went on. i did feel a bit cold at the beginning but just sort've grew to love it by the end. Huppert it goes without saying deserves much more than her one oscar nomination.
@Dave S - It’s a weird ending, especially in its tone. Polished is exactly the right word for what feels awkward about it.
@Owl - I’ll add here that Firmine Richards gives my favorite song performance in the whole film. But Huppert is so on another level here, and I hope I get to see her be this nuts soon. And thank you for the video link, I can’t imagine how fun this was to make.
@ScottC - With choices as brilliant as these, there are no wrong answers.
@thefilmjunkie - It’s a fun movie! Maybe it could be more fun, but I certainly enjoyed it.
@Rdf - Huppert in The Piano Teacher is so my Best Actress choice this year. I like Kidman fine but agree Streep is best in show there.
@Eoin - Hell, she could’ve had two nominations in 2016 and it would’ve been so incredibly deserving. Love her in Things to Come.
I don't see that many weaknesses to the film. I think it's just as much an homage as it is a postmodern destruction of the murder mystery, the musical and the melodrama, thus the off-putting feeling.
OH!!! Huppert fucking stole the show. She starts off as this uptight woman who often feels like she's in the shadow of Catherine Deneuve. I love the part where she grabs Deneuve and wanting to kick her ass. They really did act like sisters. What took the world so long to get those 2 to do a film together? Huppert also had an amazing song to sing as she seemed to enjoy the hell out of what she did.
Here's something I learned when I was doing my piece on Francois Ozon a few years ago. During the production, Huppert was always hungry for food and Danielle Darrieux always hid food somewhere as they bonded through food and always eating during shooting. I hope they shared some of that food with the rest of the cast. Notably Virginie Ledeyon who was pregnant during the shoot.
Nick -- thanks for this article. I totally agree that Huppert is best in show BUT I msut say i love the movie sooooo much more than you do. I think it's so fun and the ending is sublime.
"How wild is it that Nicole Kidman is the one who only made one movie that year?"
Birthday Girl was released in US in Feb 2002!! A v v messy unfunny "romantic" thriller. A bad movie sandwiched between Moulin Rouge!, The Others and The Hours, and thankfully, was largely forgotten now! lol
8 Women and Swimming Pool are still my favorite of Ozon’s filmography (there was a time I was completely obsessed by Ludivine Sagnier). And, in a perfect world, Fanny Ardant should have been a best supporting actress nominee for Elizabeth. She’s so powerful!