The Page Turner

A young woman (Déborah François) goes to work for a well-to-do lawyer and his concert pianist wife (Catherine Frot). Unbeknownst to them, the young woman once harbored musical ambitions of her own, which the wife unwittingly destroyed; now it’s time for a coldly calculated payback. The young woman’s coldness and calculation is the operative mood for director Denis Dercourt’s entire film (written by Dercourt and Jacques Sotty), and the chilly atmosphere of carefully plotted revenge is the movie’s main drawback as well as its chief appeal. François is immaculately dressed, unfailingly polite, and impeccably professional, while Frot is gracious and dignified yet emotionally fragile. No real villains here, just two people on a collision course, but it’s hard to care about either of them.