In Secret

There are two movies here - one of them isn't bad, the other is quite awful. In Secret starts out well before undoing all it's hard work. What a shame.

Therese (Olsen) is raised by aunt Madame Raquin (Lange), a dour woman who mollycoddles her sickly son, Camille (Felton). Forced into marriage to the limp Camille, Therese readies herself for a dull life of toiling in the family shop in Paris until the handsome artist Laurent (Isaac), he of wavy hair and dark eyes that suggest sexual abandon is a mere de-shawling away, is invited to dinner. Therese takes an instant dislike to him, saying he ‘smells like an animal’ but soon bosoms are heaving and petticoats are felt. However, as the gloomy Parisian streets press in, and family friend Olivier (Matt Lucas) rambles on about bodies in the morgue and that life is “nothing but lust and murder,” Therese and Isaac realise that they only way they can be together is to despatch the flaccid Camille. A boating trip on the river is suggested...

Adapted from Emile Zola's novel Therese Raquin, which was in turn adapted into a play, In Secret might have its origins in the 1860s but it has all the earmarks of classic noir, inspiring both The Postman Always Rings Twice and Body Heat. There's a patient character set up with some real psychosexual analysis going on – Therese's first sexual experience has a hint of danger – and there's director Stratton’s emphasis on a real gloomy, oppressing mood. All this is good.

But then after steadily building everything up, In Secret hurries about the place tearing everything down. The patience disappears as the pace cranks up and skips through time – suddenly it's eight months later and where one scene saw the Olsen and Isaac in love, the next has them at each other's throats. There's no natural progression to the change and the characters we once knew suddenly become strangers. It's as if the guts of the film are on the editing room floor.

But that's not to diminish the power of the performances with dependable turns from Olsen and Isaac and Lange doing the matriarch thing. Impressing the most is Felton, Harry Potter's Draco Malfoy, who inverts the nasty role that made him famous for a believably sympathetic sad sack here.