Synopsis
The life of a respected British politician at the height of his career crumbles when he becomes obsessed with his son's lover.
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Cast
- Jeremy IronsDr. Stephen Fleming
- Juliette BinocheAnna Barton
- Miranda RichardsonIngrid Fleming
- Rupert GravesMartyn Fleming
- Peter StormarePeter Wetzler
- Gemma ClarkeSally Fleming
- Ian BannenEdward Lloyd
- Julian FellowesDonald Lyndsay, MP
- Leslie CaronElizabeth Prideaux
- Tony DoylePrime Minister
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
Damage, like "Last Tango in Paris" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," is one of those rare movies that is about sexuality, not sex; about the tension between people, not "relationships"; about how physical love is meaningless without a psychic engine behind it. Stephen and Anna are wrong to do what they do in "Damage," but they cannot help themselves. We know they are careening toward disaster. We cannot look away. - 100
Chicago Tribune
A mesmerizing drama of sexual obsession...What makes Damage so special-and separates it from a typically American treatment of the same material-is that David Hare's script from Josephine Hart's novel gives equal time to exploring the female psyche in the film. - 90
Los Angeles Times
High-class entertainment, carefully controlled, beautifully mounted and played with total conviction. Its lurid soul may have more in common with Jackie Collins than Jane Austen, but its passionate nature and convincing performances can’t help but draw you in. - 90
Rolling Stone
Richardson is extraordinary; it’s a brave, award-caliber performance...The fiercely erotic and deeply moving Damage casts a hypnotic spell and without moralizing. - 90
Orlando Sentinel
Malle and Hare have created a devastatingly understated film about the ravages of passion. - 70
Variety
A complex look at an illicit affair that ends in disaster for everyone in its vicinity, "Damage" is a cold, brittle film about raging, traumatic emotions. Unjustly famous before its release for its hardly extraordinary erotic content, this veddy British-feeling drama from vet French director Louis Malle proves both compelling and borderline risible, wrenching and yet emotionally pinched, and reps a solid entry for serious art house audiences worldwide. - 67
Austin Chronicle
Damage brings to mind Last Tango in Paris, although Malle's elegant, precise direction is drastically different from Bertolucci's work, a film that celebrates the loss of inhibition and control. Although relentlessly somber, Damage offers a perverse humor in the idea of father-and-son rivalry over the same woman: it's like the Oedipus complex in reverse. - 60
Empire
Like its seductress, Anna, it's ravishing to behold while ultimately failing to engage the emotions.
