neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Strayed
	André Téchiné Emmanuelle Béart, Gaspard Ulliel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Clémence Meyer, Jean Fornerod, Samuel Labarthe 2003		Much like the sweeping, seriocomic French film "Bon Voyage," "Strayed" is set in the hectic, treacherous time during World War II when Germany's invasion and subsequent occupation of France forced fearful Parisians to flee their homes and head south for safety and shelter. But there's nothing particularly amusing about "Strayed," a haunting, intimate, almost claustrophobic drama, not a big-budget affair such as "Bon Voyage." Emmanuelle Béart, whose career truly took off when she played the radiant title character in 1986's "Manon of the Spring," has since appeared in movie roles ranging from serious ("Un Coeur en Hiver") to frivolous ("8 Women") to eye-candy ("Mission: Impossible"). With "Strayed," director/co-screenwriter André Téchiné gives Béart an opportunity to deliver one of her richer, subtler performances as Odile, a widowed schoolteacher in the middle of the frenzied 1940 exodus from Paris. A German plane attacks the refugees when they're on the road, and the assault destroys everything that Odile and her two children had brought with them. Escaping into the nearby woods, the family is aided by Yvan (Gaspard Ulliel), a secretive youth in his late teens. Yvan's help may not be so altruistic; he fixates on Odile. Still, she and her kids rely on him. As the tension mounts, no one's attention should wander from "Strayed."