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| Marlène Jobert and Jean Yanne in We Won't Grow Old Together |
Cast: Marlène Jobert, Jean Yanne, Christine Fabréga, Patricia Pierangeli, Jacques Galland, Maurice Risch, Harry-Max, Muse Dalbray, Macha Méril. Screenplay: Maurice Pialat. Cinematography: Luciano Tovoli. Film editing: Bernard Dubois, Arlette Langmann.
Now that all relationships between (and among) consenting adults can no longer be called "perverse," it's hard to find a word for that of Catherine (Marlène Jobert) and Jean (Jean Yanne) in Maurice Pialat's We Won't Grow Old Together. "Dysfunctional" comes to mind, although it has apparently been functioning for six years before we encounter them. "Sadomasochistic" is a little too clinical and reductive for their on-again, off-again pairing. Separately, it's easier to categorize Jean as a jerk and Catherine as a doormat, except that there's something larger and deeper about both of them. In the astonishing scene in which Catherine sits blank-faced while Jean spews out a torrent of abuse, denouncing everything about her from her looks to her family to aimlessness in life, we project our own emotions about what it would be like to undergo such a barrage of insults, only to realize that her blankness, her lack of affect, her failure to fight back, is a way of asserting her control over him. When we meet Jean's beautiful, competent, and independent wife, Françoise (Macha Méril), we realize that his urge to dominate and abuse Catherine stems from a sense of his own inadequacy. We Won't Grow Old Together, a title that admits failure from the outset, is a complex psychological portrait, perhaps too complex for the medium of film, which makes it at once fascinating and abhorrent.