Metroland Review

Adapted from Julian Barnes, this is a film about a man measuring his suburban life against the version of himself he walked away from in Paris. Bale plays Chris as a 1977 commuter prodded back into doubt by the return of Toni, his old school friend, whom Lee Ross gives a loud and hollow bohemianism that the script sees through.

The best work belongs to Emily Watson as Marion, who turns what could have been the nagging wife into the only person here with a clear view of what she wants and what it cost. Philip Saville shoots the Paris flashbacks in warm grain and the present in flat greys, an obvious scheme that still works. The problem is structural.

The material with Annick, played by Elsa Zylberstein, is so much more alive than the marriage scenes that the film keeps mislaying its own argument, and the ending settles the question of whether Chris should stay by declining to take the alternative seriously. A hundred and five minutes of ambivalence resolve into a shrug. What survives is the evening when Marion says plainly what she gave up to have this house, this child and this husband, a scene sharper than anything around it.