Cousin Bette

This adaptation of the Honore de Balzac story is in the vein of Dangerous Liaisons but, although a handsome production, not in that film's league.Principally this is because the script by Lynn Siefert and Susan Tarr does not articulate the story of the revenge of the cast-aside Bette Fisher (Jessica Lange) on her aristocratic relatives with sufficient wit, verve or conviction. Often, Bette's success seems more fortuitous happenstance than the result of any Machiavellian manipulation on her part.

In the lead, Jessica Lange is, as always, very watchable in what is an atypical role and one which suggests that she could do much more career-wise than she has done, but the rest of the cast, including Hugh Laurie, Kelly MacDonald, an also unusually-cast Bob Hoskins, Aden Young and Elisabeth Shue are all adequate but in no way commnading presences in what is, for all the trouble that has been taken, a less than tantalising affair.

 

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