The previous films of French director Arnaud Desplechin have included, on a semi-regular basis, scenes of long, cerebral post-coital discussions (My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument); characters who are either Jewish (Esther Kahn) or linked to the former Eastern Bloc (The Sentinel); narratives that break down the barriers between theater, cinema and non-fiction (Playing ‘In the Company of Men’); and sometimes all of the above at once (Ismael’s Ghosts, which opened Cannes in 2017).
It therefore comes as no surprise that Desplechin has been a longtime fan of Philip Roth, whose books are marked by many of the same obsessions, not to mention a similar focus on families in the midst of major upheavals — something on display in Desplechin’s most-beloved works, A Christmas Tale and Kings & Queen.
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Deception
To that extent, the idea of Desplechin adapting Roth to the big screen feels like a no-brainer. But the movie that results, Deception (Tromperie), based on a 1990 novel starring Roth himself (or someone very much like him: a 50-something American writer named Philip who lives in London and has an affair with a married English woman nearly half his age), doesn’t show either auteur to be at the top of his game.
In fact, Deception is usually considered one of Roth’s weaker literary efforts — a book where he seems to be running on Rothian autopilot. Or, to be crueler, where he stoops to Rothian caricature with all the attempts at crude bedroom talk and self-aggrandizing meta-fiction. The same can be said for the film, which, despite a good cast that Desplechin directs with his usual high standards, can feel numbingly shameless in its depictions of a charming young woman throwing herself at — and in one scene, getting down on her knees in front of — a celebrated older novelist, who then mines their relationship for his next work.
The writer is played by Denis Podalydès, a terrific actor both on stage (he’s a member of the Comédie-Française troupe) and screen, where he often appears in the films of his brother, Bruno. But it’s quite a big ask to have us believe that Podalydès is Philip Roth — there’s something too chummy and congenial about him, even if he can come across as slightly perverse when he’s running through Deception’s racier lines, of which there are quite a few. (Perfect casting for the part would have been the late, great Michel Piccoli, who in his prime looked like Roth’s doppelgänger.)
Philip’s lover is played by Léa Seydoux (present in four films in Cannes this year), who does her best in a nameless role that can also seem quite thankless, especially when she’s meant to stare bright-eyed at the novelist as he aggressively spouts his opinions, whether on British anti-Semitism (a recurring topic) or the doomed nature of their affair. Yet as a woman searching for love outside of a loveless marriage, Seydoux’s character also has a decent amount of agency, and her candor is one of the few things that make the film palatable.
Much of the action is set in Philip’s comfortable London flat, which serves as both a workspace and busy bachelor pad, with the lovers meeting for trysts during several long afternoons throughout what seems like a long year. The confined space adds to the theatricality of a source text that’s composed almost entirely of dialogue — something that Desplechin highlights with a few short scenes of the actors performing on a stage.
Indeed, Deception may have made a better play than a movie, so much does it consist of conversations in rooms, whether they be in the London apartment, or else in Prague or New York, when the narrative explores a few other women (played by the trio of Emmanuelle Devos, Rebecca Marder and Madalina Constantin) that have been a part of Philip’s life.
But even on the stage, the drama would have suffered from the same sense of inertia, of people talking and talking — or pontificating, in Philip’s case — without necessarily going anywhere interesting. At times the whole thing feels like a rant, and one that’s filled with vintage Rothian chutzpah (“I’m a fetishist of the spoken word,” “I left my c–t at home today,” “I’m not capable of f—g words,” etc.) serving to prove how brash and perceptive he is, especially compared to the Jew-hating Englishmen he grumbles on about.
There’s clearly something transgressive (or is it just French?) about Desplechin deciding to make the 1987-set movie right now, in 2021, when there’s been a sizable reckoning about many of the attitudes Roth professes in his novel. (And let’s not forget the recent reckoning involving Roth’s long-awaited official biography, whose release earlier this year was curtailed by allegations of sexual assault against his handpicked biographer, Blake Bailey.)
To add fuel to the fire, the director’s adaptation is, for the most part, extremely loyal to the novel (excepting the fact that the film is in French, with French actors pretending to be Brits or Americans). A late sequence where Philip suffers a mock trial for his outré personality is perhaps meant to offer up some kind of critical discourse, but the trial is shown to be a complete farce, and he sort of laughs the whole thing off.
Of the cast of women who enter in and out of Philip’s wife, one that could have used more screen time is his wife (Anouk Grinberg), who barely registers as a character. While Philip spends his afternoons in the arms of his lover and gathering material for his next masterpiece, his wife seems to be simply waiting for him to come home.
It’s not a very flattering position to be in, especially when she winds up discovering her husband’s notebooks and then castigates him for cheating on her. Philip tries to explain that the affair was all made up, that it’s just part of his depraved writer’s imagination. And at some point we, too, start wondering if it’s fake or real, fact or fiction.
Desplechin doesn’t give us a clear answer in the end, but I’m not sure we need it. Like a beltway surrounding its hero’s bloviating ego trips and massive libido, the film keeps turning in circles around a subject that’s only truly interesting if you’re Philip himself.
