This Sweet Sickness [Dites-lui que je l’aime] **** (1977, Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou, Claude Piéplu, Dominique Laffin) – Classic Movie Review 188

Gérard Depardieu stars as a dangerously disturbed young accountant in the 1977 French psychological thriller This Sweet Sickness [Dites-lui que je l’aime], a mesmerising study in obsession, sickness and despair adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel.

Co-writer/director Claude Miller adapts a deliciously disturbing twisted romantic thriller from The Talented Mr Ripley author Patricia Highsmith and comes up with another polished, classy, riveting film. A mesmerising study in obsession, sickness and despair, the 1977 French psychological thriller This Sweet Sickness [Dites-lui que je l’aime] is a must-see for Highsmith fans and admirers of Miller.

A scarily young and handsome looking Gérard Depardieu stars as the dangerously disturbed young accountant David Martinaud, who has a secret obsession – with his childhood sweetheart Lise (Dominique Laffin). And he passes his weekends not looking after his sick parents like he tells folk he is – because actually they are deceased – but converting a chalet home in the snowy wastes where he plans in his head to live with her.

Each Friday he sets off from town, pretending to go to the old people’s home where he says his parents live, to take care of them. But instead he works happily away on the chalet, where he intends to stay in bliss with the lovely Lise. Unfortunately she doesn’t really know about it and he’s stalking her. And, of course, he has dipped into insanity. He’s one of Highsmith’s weird, crazy little monsters.

But then comes what could be a huge spanner in the works. Lise has married someone else and gets pregnant, and has a child, and David is beside himself. But, in his amour fou, David doesn’t see the truth as any real obstacle to his plans, though Lise’s angry husband might be. Meanwhile, however, Juliette (Miou-Miou) is obsessed with David and she starts stalking him… And David’s married colleague François (Christian Clavier) won’t leave Juliette alone either… Love is This Sweet Sickness.

This Sweet Sickness [Dites-lui que je l’aime] is a bitter-sweetly observed, quite haunting, truly disconcerting mystery-romance psychological thriller, with a careful screenplay capturing the essence and spirit of Highsmith’s 1960 book, eye-catching filming with Pierre Lhomme’s distinguished cinematography in Chamonix and Boissy, and the stars on excellent form under sympathetic director Claude Miller. The young Depardieu and Miou-Miou are splendid, quite a revelation, and quite scary too in their demented, deranged characters.

Depardieu moves from calm to creepy to sinister to threatening, and on to violent, in a completely convincing and uniquely menacing fashion. He inhabits the character totally. He is such a good actor here. Miou-Miou is hypnotic in her perfectly peculiar portrait of passive-aggressive power. She won’t stop coming on to David whatever it costs her emotionally or physically. She just won’t take no for an answer. Dominique Laffin’s Lise is shockingly ambiguous. Her lack of clarity in her approach to David is dangerous. Miou-Miou’s Juliette is far the more attractive of the two women, but David isn’t interested. He only has eyes for Lise.

Claude Miller moves from ominous to startling to frightening in an equally convincing fashion, staging some startling sequences along the way to his crazy climax at the swimming baths. There is so much hate, anger, rage and pain – and violence – in this film that it is almost unbearable. Sometimes it plays more like a horror movie than a psychological thriller.

The film’s original French title is Dites-lui que je l’aime (which translates as Tell Her that I Love Her) and the book’s French title is Ce Mal Etrange. Luc Béraud worked on the adaptation and dialogue with Miller.

The cast are Gérard Depardieu as David Martinaud, Miou-Miou as Juliette, Claude Piéplu as Chouin, Jacques Denis as Gérard Dutilleux, Dominique Laffin as Lise, Christian Clavier as François, Xavier Saint-Macary as Michel Barbet, Véronique Silver as Madame Barbet, Annick Le Moal as Camille, Josiane Balasko as Nadine, Michel Pilorgé as Maurice, Jacqueline Jeanne as Jeanne, Michel Such as Raymond, and Nathan Miller as child.

The film received six César nominations, for best director, actor, actress, cinematography, production design and sound.

This Sweet Sickness was adapted in 1962 for an episode of the TV show The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, titled Annabel, directed by Paul Henreid, and starring Dean Stockwell as David Kelsey. Hitchcock had filmed Highsmith’s 1950 first novel, Strangers on a Train (1951).

In Highsmith’s novel, dedicated to her mother Mary, scientist David Kelsey is infatuated with Annabelle.

David and Juliette are watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca in the cinema at the beginning of the movie. David has a copy of Vemeer’s painting A Lady Standing at a Virginal in his cabin.

Claude Miller, also renowned for The Best Way to Walk [La meilleure façon de marcher], Garde à Vue (1981), and The Accompanist [L’accompagnatrice], died aged 70 in 2012, just managing to make Thérèse Desqueyroux in his last months.

Films directed by Claude Miller: The Best Way to Walk (1976), [Dites-lui que je l’aime] This Sweet Sickness (1977), Garde à Vue (1981), Deadly Circuit (1983), An Impudent Girl (1985), The Little Thief (1988), The Accompanist [L’accompagnatrice] (1992), Le Sourire (1994), Class Trip (1998), Of Woman and Magic (2000), Alias Betty (2001), Little Lili (2003), A Secret (2007), Marching Band (2009), I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive (2009), See How They Dance (2010), and Thérèse Desqueyroux (2012).

The films of the works of Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1951), Plein Soleil [Purple Noon] (1960), Le Meurtrier [Enough Rope] (1963), The American Friend (1977), [Dites-lui que je l’aime] This Sweet Sickness (1977), A Dog’s Ransom (1978), The Glass Cell (1978), Le Cri du Hibou [The Cry of the Owl] (1987), The Story Teller (1989), The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), Ripley’s Game (2002), Ripley Under Ground (2005), The Cry of the Owl (2009), The Two Faces of January (2014), Carol (2015), A Kind of Murder (2016), and Deep Water (2022).

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 188

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