The Things of Life (1970) on Netflix
Pierre Bérard, a Paris architect, is caught between Hélène, his younger lover, and Catherine, his estranged wife. Driving to Rennes, he swerves to avoid a stalled lorry at a crossroads.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.4/106,420 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Pierre Bérard is an architect in Paris in his forties. He is caught between Hélène, the younger woman he loves, and Catherine, his estranged wife. The night before, he had quarrelled with Hélène, and he has not signed the papers for a job in Tunis, where they were to go together. He has agreed to take his teenage son Bertrand, who lives with Catherine, to the family holiday home on the Île de Ré. Driving to a meeting at Rennes, he swerves to avoid a lorry stalled at a crossroads and crashes into an orchard.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Things of Life (1970)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The car crash that opens The Things of Life was shot on a crossroads built specifically for the film, and the sequence took two weeks to shoot.
- Claude Sautet hired composer Philippe Sarde to write the score, which began a partnership between the two spanning twenty-five years and eleven films.
- The idea of adapting Paul Guimard's novel was originally turned down by multiple financiers in France before The Things of Life was made.
- The Things of Life was Claude Sautet's fourth feature as director and the first of his films to become a major success.
