Nearest To Heaven
Still magnificent as she approaches 60, Catherine Deneuve demonstrates inNearest to Heaventhat her talent and beauty are undiminished. A  moody art historian named Fanette (Deneuve,8 Women,Belle de  Jour) holds a torch for a lover from her youth. When she hears that he  was at a class reunion, she has visions of him in a grey suit and imagines  she's just missed seeing him at a movie theater or on the street. Out of  nowhere he leave a note on her door, asking her to meet him atop the  Empire State Building, in homage toAn Affair to Remember, their  favorite movie. When Fanette travels to New York, she meets a photographer  (William Hurt,The Accidental Tourist) who woos her  aggressively--but Fanette resists, aching for her lost love.Nearest to  Heavenis best described as a meditation on desire vs. reality, but  much of the movie is as suspenseful as any psychological thriller. Deneuve  vividly lays bare Fanette's layers of neurosis; this could be the adult  version of her character from Roman Polanski's classicRepulsion--functional on the surface, but with madness roiling  underneath. Partly in English, partly in French with English subtitles.--Bret Fetzer