Anne Fontaine’s 2003 drama “Nathalie…,” like all recent foreign films, is getting an English language remake. With stuff like the recently announced “Let Me In” (a remake of “Let The Right One In”), its sorta understandable why we’d get a redo, in that there’s a genre that Americans would find recognizable and an opportunity for beaucoup Yankee dollars. But the original “Nathalie…” is a small, lowkey, very French sensual drama about a woman who, fearing her husband’s infidelity, hires a prostitute to seduce him and return to her with the sordid details. The film has several dynamics in play, from the sexual re-awakening of the wife to the erotically charged storytelling of the prostitute, and the obliviousness of the husband, who finds his wife suddenly acting like a different person in bed with him.
Even odder is Atom Egoyan being chosen to helm the updating. It’s a small, highly sexual story, and the only people who would see it are the types who would be hard-wired to seek out the original. You’d have to think Egoyan, a sharply talented filmmaker (“The Sweet Hereafter”) has a different spin- he at least has a chance to produce a pretty exciting movie with Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore as the spouses, and Max Theriot also added to the cast today. But the key role in the original is the prostitute, sensuously brought to life by Emmanuelle Beart. Beart’s sensuality has made her a favorite of French audiences, but she did come to America to star alongside Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible”- however, in her place for the American redo is Amanda Seyfried. In theory, you’d think the film will emphasize fertile dramatic ground created from the wider age gap, as Seyfried is still fairly young compared to the world-weary call girl of the original film, but it’s impossible to ignore- there are few women that can capture the raw sexual power of Beart, particularly in “Nathalie…” and Seyfried is NOT one of them.