This movie wanted to be in the tradition of the grande romantic tragedies. That is too bad, because it limited the possibilities it could have played out. I was expecting a more musings, depth and content from Diderot, the 18th century Encyclopedic philosopher whose story Jean Cocteau, the author of Les Enfants Terribles adapted here.
The audience knows the machinations of the woman revenging her lovers falling interest in him. We see how she weaves her web, that he falls in helplessly. We are just as helpless and would want to cry out to him ” beware”, but the figures are just not interesting enough for us to care enough. The lady’s weapon of choice is a noble women who because of financial misfortune sis forced to become an exotic dancer (in those years exotic dancers had just as bad reputations, but didn’t mean nude dancing.) She realizes eventually that she is just a pawn but cannot do anything about it. She is the only legitimate player in this game, the only one whose acting seems authentic. After watching this movie about love and betrayal it made me curious how these themes were expounded in the original text.