Most prolific artists produce minor works at some points in their careers, efforts that often display some characteristic flourishes but don’t aim high or integrate multiple strands into one cohesive, impressive whole. Some movie directors exhibit this tendency: Hitchcock had his share of minor movies, as did Bergman, Truffaut, and Ozu. Even Martin Scorsese, who always seems to work on all cylinders, gave us “Shutter Island.”As another example, we have the just-released “Both Sides of the Blade,” from an acclaimed French director, Claire Denis. While incorporating a few of her trademark stylistic touches and thematic concerns, the movie turns out to be a fairly straightforward tale of the dissolution of a marriage. It includes none of the visual heights nor any of the multitudinous layers of meaning we’ve come to expect from her work. In movies such as “Beau Travail” and “White Material,” Ms. Denis dealt with important issues of militarism, race, and colonialism, while also taking time to focus on complex interpersonal dynamics. Her best movies could be seen as intimate portraits of relationships that emit a hazy, poetic light on political and societal discourse. In “Both Sides,” there are mentions of the crisis in Lebanon, white supremacy, and the high price of gas, while the actors frequently sport masks (the movie was filmed during the pandemic). Yet these contemporary talking points never feel embedded within the steady narrative rhythm, just shoehorned in like bad prose.Perhaps the reason for this aesthetic slackness stems from the strictures of genre, which in this case is the thriller. For most of the film’s running time it seems we are watching the type of movie in which sex, duplicity, and betrayal entwine and violence will be the only outcome. The basic plot confirms this: Sara, played by Juliette Binoche, is married to ex-con Jean (Vincent Lindon), but when her former lover and Jean’s former business partner François (Grégoire Colin) returns to town, things start to fall apart. The movie’s soundtrack underlines this dramatic apprehension by seesawing between the insipid, for scenes of domestic bliss, and the overly ominous, whenever François is seen or even mentioned.It could be said that Ms. Denis becomes hamstrung by the genre’s expectations but then, more than an hour into the movie, we get a long, fantastic scene of Sara and Jean arguing about whether she kissed her former lover at an event and discussing the nature of their relationship. It’s a very adult conversation, with none of the manufactured menace of the typical thriller. Although there’s nothing in the scene’s dialogue that countless couples haven’t heard or said before, Ms. Denis films Ms. Binoche and Mr. Lindon in nervy closeups and shows them moving toward and away from each other, creating an atmosphere alive with truth and energy, instead of predetermination and gloominess.If ultimately their director decided not to submit to the conventions of genre, and therefore created an unsatisfying movie half-way between a thriller and a weepie, the two main actors cannot be faulted for fully committing to their roles. Mr. Lindon, who has worked with Ms. Denis before, brings such a hangdog, intelligent quality to his characterization of Jean that he very nearly steals the movie from Ms. Binoche. In the end, though, it’s her movie and, having also worked with Denis several times before, Ms. Binoche is clearly very comfortable with the director behind the camera. She demonstrates a near full spectrum of emotions in the course of the film — indeed, sometimes within just one scene. Not long before the credits roll, the movie requires her to portray a woman who’s lost nearly everything, primarily due to her decisions. Binoche pulls it off as few actresses could, with an infinitesimal shudder of happiness. A minor moment made major.
