Suite Française

In the early 1940s the Nazis have swept through France and Michelle Williams, as a bourgeois native, finds herself drawn to the German officer billeted in her grand house - even while her husband languishes in a prison camp. Once again, romance proves no respecter of nationality or creed in this adaptation of the posthumously published novel by Irene Nemirovsky who, in a tragic irony, wrote it just before being deported to Auschwitz where she died in 1942. British director Saul Dibb (The Duchess) fleshes out intrigues only hinted at by the author, yet he remains true to the book's astonishingly vivid evocation of its troubled era, and the actors certainly rise to the occasion. Williams is utterly convincing as the slightly demure young woman drawn into a whole new world of romantic passion and humanitarian commitment, while Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts proves gallant and sensitive in what could have been a clichéd "good German" role. Kristin Scott Thomas delivers steely support as her rightly suspicious mother-in-law, lending gravitas to a gripping slice of history and an intoxicating love story in the classic mould.