The Aviator's Wife
The Aviator's Wife
| 04 March 1981 (USA)
The Aviator's Wife Trailers

A student is devastated when he finds that his girlfriend is cheating on him. In order to find out why she did it, he decides to spy on her and her airline pilot lover. Then he sees the pilot with a blonde woman and he begins to follow them…

Reviews
Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
fiachra23 Rohmer's subtlety in this film is approaching completion. There is a moment that I notice that went unnoticed but my opinion is essential in film flow. When Aviator and pass by Francois and his wife Lucie, Lucie says out loud in German Aviator returns (probably German aviator known) surprised. Lucile pretends he does not know what she said when in fact is very clear: "So you're ongoing to marry." Moment that completely changes the course of the film (which only apparently does not change). It is exactly the same method used by Flemish painters who were hiding in paintings seemingly trivial details surprising, subtle, encrypted messages. Brilliant film, perhaps one of the best I've seen....
Dennis Littrell In this bittersweet tale of disconnections and possibilities perhaps we have the essence of the art of Eric Rohmer. If you have only one Rohmer film to see, perhaps you ought to make it this one because it is so very, very French, so interestingly talkative (one of Rohmer's trademarks) and so very, very Rohmer.The Aviator's wife, incidentally does not appear except in a photograph, but that is all to the point. Everything is a bit off stage in this intriguing drama: love especially is a bit off stage. And yet how all the participants yearn.Marie Riviere stars as Anne who is in love with the aviator. We catch her just as she learns that he no longer wants her. He tells her that his wife is pregnant and so he must return to her. Meanwhile, she is being pestered by Francois (Philippe Marlaud) who is in love with her. However he is a little too young and "clinging." Truly she is not interested. It is a disconnection as far as she is concerned.The heart of the film occurs when Francois is following the aviator and the blond woman. Francois is obsessive and jealous. He follows because...it isn't clear and he really doesn't know why except that this is the man that Anne loves. As it happens while he is following them he runs into a pretty fifteen-year-old (Lucie, played fetchingly by Anne-Laure Meury) who imagines that he is following her. She turns it into a game, and again we have a disconnection. She is fun and cute and full of life, but he cannot really see her because he pines for Anne. Meanwhile Anne of course is pining for the aviator.Rohmer's intriguing little joke is about the aviator's wife. Who is she and what is she like? We can only imagine. And this is right. The woman imagines what the other woman is like, but never really knows unless she meets her.Maire Riviere is only passably pretty, but she has gorgeous limbs and beautiful skin and a hypnotic way about her, which Rohmer accentuates in the next to the last scene in her apartment with Francois. We follow the talk between the two, of disconnection and off center possibilities, of friends and lovers with whom things are tantalizingly not exactly right and yet not tragically wrong. As we follow this talk we see that Anne's heart is breaking or has broken--and all the while we see her skin as Francois does. She wants to be touched, but not by him. And then she allows him to touch her, but only in comforting gestures, redirecting his hands away from amorous intent. And then she goes out with a man in whom she really has no interest.Such is life, one might say. Rohmer certainly thinks so.One thing I love about Rohmer's films is that you cannot predict where they will go. Another thing is his incredible attention to authentic detail about how people talk and how they feel without cliché and without any compromise with reality--Rohmer's reality of course, which I find is very much like the reality that I have experienced.See this for Eric Rohmer whose entre into the world of cinema is substantial, original, and wonderfully evocative of what it is like to live in the modern world with an emphasis on personal relationships and love.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)
Bob Taylor TFO, an Ontario network, has been showing Rohmer films in rotation for some time. This one is new to me. A young man works the night shift at the post office to finance his studies. His girl friend works days, so their relationship is haphazard, to say the least. He believes she cheated on him with an older man--the pilot--so he spies on the pilot to find out more... I can't find much to like about these people. Anne is neurotic and manipulative, as well as a liar when it suits her, and it's obvious why Francois loves her: he wants a mother-figure. Marie Riviere has always been unpleasant to watch; here you want to slap her. Lucie is another in a long line of sprightly teenage girls that Rohmer loves so much. Anne-Laure Meury displays a lot of charm as she tries to get Francois to talk about himself. Her acting provides the only moments of freshness and openness in this story.Rohmer has tried to make this film in the youthful style of the New Wave, using 16mm fast film and portable cameras, and it works very well in the greenery of the Buttes-Chaumont.
Stefan Kahrs Movies by Eric Rohmer are not to everybody's liking. For me, personally, they are a hit-and-miss affair. His films are always slow and full of dialogue, and there is very little story taking place outside the dialogue. It can be very appropriate, believable and effective, but it can also go badly wrong. Here it has gone badly wrong. The film is too talkative; I felt continuously alienated from the film's characters who somehow managed to live in a world of their own. "Get a life!" I wanted to shout at them initially, or "You like feeling miserable?", but ultimately I would not care enough about them.