Mrs. Reinhardt (1981)

Based on a short story by the celebrated Irish writer Edna O'Brien, this film comes across as a pallid clone of Tennessee Williams' ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE. After catching her husband (Ralph Bates) committing adultery, an English wife (Helen Mirren) flees Britain for the French countryside. There she hooks up with a young American (Brad Davis) and what starts out as a romantic fling turns ugly and humiliating. The Brittany setting is gorgeous, lush and green, lakes with ducks, millhouses turned into cottages and a quaint country inn with gourmet dining. But it's never a pleasure to see an intelligent and beautiful woman degraded and abused by a brute. Ironcially, later in her career Mirren would star in a remake of Williams' ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE to better effect. Here, her actions seem silly and ill motivated. Oddly, Davis plays the American like a gay street hustler (perhaps it's best not to dwell on that).