Product Details

• Actors: Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Rupert Graves, Ian Bannen
• Directors: Louis Malle
• Writers: David Hare, Josephine Hart
• Producers: Louis Malle, Simon Relph, Vincent Malle
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English, French, German, Italian
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• VHS Release Date: April 15, 1997
• Run Time: 111 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0780609085
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #283,583 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The fascination of watching Damage is similar to the fascination of watching a car crash in progress--you know something unpleasant is going to happen, but your attention is riveted to the scene of destruction. In the case of this acclaimed drama, adapted by playwright David Hare from the novel by Josephine Hart, the destruction results from a collision of sexual attraction between a British governmental official (Jeremy Irons) and his son's fiancée (Juliette Binoche). Blind to the damage they'll cause to others and themselves, they begin an obsessive affair based purely on impulsive attraction and the hidden emotions that feed into their immediate physical desires. As you could expect, this leads to emotional fallout for everyone concerned, lending multiple interpretations to the film's title and allowing Miranda Richardson (as Irons's wife) to give a brilliant performance drawn from raw anger and betrayal. Under the direction of Louis Malle, this forceful drama never resorts to sordid detail or gratuitous titillation. Rather, Malle and his esteemed cast have explored the ways in which the power of sexuality supercedes the rationality of logic, when mutual attraction is stronger than one's ability to resist temptation. Damage makes it clear that such an indulgence will always come at considerable cost. The DVD of this fine film includes a behind-the-scenes featurette and the original theatrical trailer. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

A middle-aged British politician (Jeremy Irons, looking and sounding alarmingly like Boris Karloff) falls in love with his son's girlfriend, a mysterious half-French beauty (Juliette Binoche). The screenplay-by David Hare, from Josephine Hart's sensationally stupid best-seller-aims to create a sense of tragic inevitability out of a banal infidelity story: what it achieves is lethal predictability. For almost two hours, the movie alternates joyless, desperate (but tastefully lit) couplings with painfully awkward family gatherings; then somebody dies and everybody's sad and it's over. Director Louis Malle has played artistic sugar daddy to Hart's shallow little novel-provided a lavishly appointed flat for a story that isn't worth a cheap motel room. Also with Miranda Richardson (who is dreadful), Rupert Graves, Ian Bannen, and Leslie Caron.-T.R. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Obessive Love (or Lust) Gone Wrong, December 5, 2001

By 

Sara (OK, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Damage (DVD)

As is true with the novel, _Damage_ the film is not for everyone. If you are easily offended or prudish in any manner, skip this one. I have talked with a few people who rented the film because they were fans of Jeremy Irons but were upset by the premise of the movie. So, as I said, if you are easily offended, skip _Damage_.

Stephen Fleming (Jeremy Irons) is a prominent MP with a career that continues to blossom. He is married to an attractive, blueblood wife and has two healthy children. His son, Martyn (Rupert Graves), is doing well for himself: he has met a new girlfriend and has been promoted to an important position as political writer for a newspaper. Stephen and Anna (Juliette Binoche) meet at a party or get-together of some sort and discover an instant attraction. Stephen finds out shortly thereafter that Anna is Martyn's girlfriend. Within days, a steamy, destructive sexual relationship begins between Anna and Stephen. It continues, growing increasingly passionate, obsessive and harmful. In an odd (even wacky) twist of fate, their affair is discovered. Anna flees in her usual pattern and Stephen must return to his wife, Ingrid (Miranda Richardson), to see if he can possibly salvage his marriage.

Aside from the plot being centered around a man cheating on his wife with his son's girlfriend, the intense sex scenes in the film will likely turn some people off. I have seen both the R-rated and the Unrated version of the film and I cannot tell any difference between them so whichever one you choose, you are sure to see plenty of skin. After I watched the film, I read the novel by Josephine Hart and felt that I understood the characters much better. Although Stephen does inspire some feelings of repulsion from me, I do feel sympathy for him. He has lived a life of routine and boredom. As Louis Malle discusses in the "One on One" feature found on this DVD, the family life Stephen has experienced is one built on habit, not on strong emotions. When Anna comes along, something snaps. All of the emotions that Stephen has bottled up come rushing out like a floodgate that has burst. I suppose, all explanations and interpretations aside, that in the end, _Damage_ is the kind of film a person with either love or hate, understand or misapprehend. If you enjoy films about forbidden love or love gone wrong, _Damage_ is certainly for you.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Obsession, May 8, 2005

By 

G. Corrado "Observer" (Boston) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Damage (DVD)

Do not read this review if you haven't seen the movie. I happened to see this movie for the third time a few nights ago. It came on at midnight, and I had to work in the morning, but I had to watch it again. I have read many of the reviews on this site, and though most of them grasp the primary messages in this devastating story, I read none that expressed what I feel is the most frightening aspect of the lessons to be found here. It is not just that obsession or obsessive love or obsessive sexual attraction is damaging. Here is a woman who had already been through this situation, albeit with different characters, and though she new the outcome, she could not help but to dive headlong into it. Her brother had killed himself because he couldn't tolerate the reality that she - for whom he had an obsessive and forbidden love - would love someone else. She had returned from a tryst to find her brother dead. Here, she plays with the fire of her fiance's father, and she "returns" from this tryst with her fiance dead. Though his death was arguably accidental, it is not a stretch to believe that he wished to die at the moment he discovered his father and his betrothed together. Thus she is, and will always be, an agent of damage, and the message she herself delivered to her lover - that she is dangerous because she is a survivor - fell on deaf ears. The father was thus warned twice - by the lover and the lover's mother. The father was not just unleashing bottled up passion - he was acting out a slow suidice. Some have said that Binoche's acting was not good in this film - that she was psychopathic, cold, unemotional. I believe she played it perfectly - a woman afraid of and resigned to her own destiny. Her apparent lack of emotion I saw as resigned awe that this man would desire, to his ultimate destruction, a woman as damaged as she. The message for me is found in the repetition of events and the inevitability of destiny - that in fact it may be impossible to overcome what is meant for a person and for those who come in contact with that person no matter what is accomplished in the name of healing. I am going to stop here. As a reached the end of watching this movie for the third time the other night, I realized that I could probably write a book about it. Sparing myself, however, I'm not going to do that. I highly recommend this movie if you can handle and/or enjoy the very darkest of the dark in human existence.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How could it go any other way?, February 4, 2000

By 

John Cobb (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Damage (DVD)

I routinely go on Juliette Binoche hunts. From Andre Techine's "Rendezvous", through Phil Kaufman's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", and Kieslowski's spectacular "Blue", there is only one way to Anthony Minghella's "The English Patient", and Chatal Ackerman's "Couch in New York" and that road goes right through Louie Malle's "Damage".

I am just young enough to have missed Malle in his prime, my perspective and morality just askew enough to not fully appreciate say `Pretty Baby" or "Lacombe Lucien" even his wonderful "Atlantic City" eluded me for some time.

But Damage, from the extremely short novel of Josephine Hart is a story that must be told, and Louie Malle is a superb storyteller. American movie-goers tend to shy from the psychological drama, of which this film is a superb example, as they somewhat shy away from the movies lead, Jeremy Irons.

Iron's character, Fleming is a Minister in the cabinet of the British Prime Minister. He's from proper upbringing, his stance is rigid, his tone short and dismissive-he's a man holding in his gut for the entirety of his life who's getting ready to pop all his buttons in one fail swoop.

His distraction for Anna (Binoche) the fiancée of his only son, has an intensity that is combustible and I would be derelict to tell any more of the tale.

Not for all tastes, maybe not even for all mature tastes, but when you're in the mood for something adult, something intense, I suggest you look here.