Produced by TF1, a TV channel, the film looks more like a MTV work than a movie to be released in theaters ; the pictures are superb , the atmosphere is haunting and the relationships delicate and discreet .But it's very slow-moving, austere and it may put off lots of viewers (hence the poor rating).In a nutshell, it's not an accessible work.Directing remains stand-offish and cold ,and never conveys emotions even in the darkest moments (the death of the baby girl).

Based on a Tchekov's novella, it transferred the action from Moscow to Aix -Les -Bains ,France 1870 ,just after the defeat and the fall of the Second Empire.But the historical background is only skimmed over and quickly forgotten ,no hint at "La Commune" for instance: one moves in a bourgeois milieu ,the hero lives off his private outcome -his cantakerous father is a wealthy industrialist which made his fortune with iron(but now threatened by the coming of steel ).

Alexandre is this idle oaf ,nearing forty ;he's got nothing but his money to attract a wife;it's proof positive that the late Jacques Villeret was able to take on dramatic parts :his look,longing for a love and affection which always elude him will move you to the very end.His wife 's (Sabine Azema ) hate for the provinces appear in the first sequences ,but she is not a new Madame Bovary: her husband is rich ,and anyways she's religious and she goes to church every day ; a tragic event makes her lose her faith and she tries to draw closer to her moody husband :but it's perhaps too late three years on.

it would have taken a great director such as Bertrand Tavernier,to make us really feel for these remote characters ,he who directed Azema so well in "un dimanche à la campagne" .