Jean Desailly (Pierre Lachenay) is a fairly famous writer, living in Paris with his wife Franca (Nelly Benedetti) and daughter Sabine. On a business trip in Portugal, Jean falls in love with flight attendant Nicole (Francoise Dorlea), and they start a passionate affair. During the following day, he heads off back to Paris, but he can't stop thinking of her. During the following week, they spend time together between her varied flights. He decides to head a lecture in Reims, taking Nicole with him so they can have a mini holiday together. As with every film about affairs (Crimes and Misdemeanours, Fatal Attraction), things soon go horribly wrong...
Told from the man's point of view, this is more of an acting film then anything else. There is only so much nifty camerawork possible with such a limiting script. Truffaut is at his best being inventive and the typical story of a man cheating on a woman and bad things happen, is not inventive, and is as old as cinema itself. Made after 'The 400 blows' and 'Jules and Jim', this film was made at the peak of his career, but lacks from being unoriginal and predictable. Maybe it wasn't back then, but it sure is now.
The acting is fairly decent, but it never really pulled me in. As all New Wave films, all the women in it are beautiful, but even the ladies don't bring this film above mediocrity.
That said, it wasn't terrible to sit through, just occasionally gripping but mostly unremarkable. Better than the ultra-naff 'Fahrenheit 451' but worse than every other film of his.
TO CONCLUDE
Only Truffaut's nifty camerawork, save this film. He's done a lot superior films, just skip this one
SCORE
70
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