Guy Lodge Film CriticDespite their individual box-office success, the exceedingly mild BDSM frolics of the “Fifty Shades” films did little to revive Hollywood’s interest in the kind of frosty, high-style erotic drama that was de rigueur in the early 1990s — around the time that French writer Annie Ernaux scored some international renown with her sexually frank autofiction novel “Simple Passion.” French filmmakers’ loyalty to such material has remained more steadfast, however, so it’s somewhat surprising that it’s taken nearly 20 years for Ernaux’s provocation to reach the screen.
Finally, Franco-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid has taken a gutsy stab at it, with an imperfect but glassily compelling study of obsessive, finally debilitating.
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