Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.
The Lover is visually sumptuous, with Raoul Coutard's lush cinematography capturing 1920s Saigon in warm, sensual tones that remain its greatest strength. The plot, adapted from Marguerite Duras's autobiographical novel, is thin on narrative momentum — it relies heavily on atmosphere and voiceover rather than dramatic structure, which can feel meandering. The acting is serviceable; Jane March is effectively enigmatic if limited in range, while Tony Leung Ka-fai brings emotional depth to a role that risks being purely reactive. Novelty is moderate — while the colonial erotic drama territory was not entirely new, Annaud's approach has a distinct literary, dreamlike quality. The ending carries genuine melancholy and resonance, echoing the bittersweet tone of Duras's prose, landing above average without being transcendent.