LES PARENTS TERRIBLES: A Delightfully Sharp-Tongued Farce Turns 70

With the demise of FilmStruck looming ominously on the horizon, it’s clear that the preservation and re-release of classic films via physical media remains crucial. The knowledge that many of FilmStruck’s streaming titles are not currently available for purchase on commercial DVD is downright tragic – one fears that once the streaming service is gone, these films will dissolve into the ether, only to be replaced by an endless assembly line of sequels to Netflix’s The Christmas Prince. Yet movie lovers can at least find some solace in companies like Kino Lorber, the Criterion Collection, and the Cohen Media Group, which continue to release rare and classic titles on DVD and ensure that these films continue to find an audience in the twenty-first century.

The latest release from the Cohen Media Group is Les Parents Terribles, a new 2K restoration of writer-director Jean Cocteau’s 1948 adaptation of his own play, released to coincide with the film’s 70th anniversary. Starring Jean Marais and Josette Day, who also starred as the title characters in Cocteau’s mesmerizingly magical La belle et la bête, Les Parents Terribles is a sharply funny yet simultaneously heartbreaking tale of the familial struggle that ensues when a beloved son announces his intention to leave home and marry. It’s also a beautiful example of how a stage play can be successfully adapted for the screen – a far more complex art than many would think.

Family Matters

Michel (Marais) is a 22-year-old man who lives at home with his mother, Yvonne (Yvonne de Bray), an invalid dependent on insulin injections who smothers Michel with affection to the point of absurdity; his father, Georges (Marcel André), an eccentric inventor; and his aunt, Leo (Gabrielle Dorziat), Yvonne’s spinster sister. The logical Leo was engaged to Georges before Yvonne married him; she now spends her days making sure her sister and brother-in-law don’t fall apart at the seams.

This mess of a household, described by Leo as “gypsy caravan”, is thrown into a further uproar when Michel comes home one day and announces that he plans to marry a young woman named Madeleine (Day). Michel’s giddy joy over being in love is promptly crushed by both of his parents, who vehemently oppose the match, albeit for very different reasons. Yvonne? Her entire life revolves around her son, and she resents the idea of him leaving her to bestow his affections on another woman. Georges? Turns out, Madeleine has been his mistress for some months now.

Michel is aware that Madeleine has an older lover with whom she has been meaning to break it off, but he has no idea said lover is his own father. Georges, however, is aware that Michel’s Madeleine is also his, and spills everything to Leo. Ever the orderly conductor of this “gypsy caravan,” Leo decides that the only way to clean up this mess is to convince Madeleine and Michel to end their relationship. But, what at first seems like a simple solution to the problem grows more complicated when Leo meets the young woman at the heart of the matter. With everything going on inside these people’s hearts and minds, it’s no wonder that the English title of the film is The Storm Within.

From Stage to Screen

Cocteau relied on the same actors that he used in the play to bring Les Parents Terribles from stage to screen, and it shows in the cast’s easy chemistry with each other. They all wear their characters like comfortable, worn-in gloves, the way only actors who have played the same role several times opposite the same people can. Marais is impossibly charming as the naive young Michel, while Day brings the same admirable strength of character to the role of Madeleine as she did to the role of Belle. As for the titular parents…well, they are indeed pretty terrible, but they’re also a great deal of fun to watch.

As Yvonne, de Bray is a terrifying force to be reckoned with, flouncing around the house in a bathrobe as she alternates between cuddling her adult son like a teddy bear and screaming at him that he’s trying to abandon her. Yvonne takes motherly love to an extreme that practically qualifies as abuse, yet at the same time, one cannot help but pity her existence. Georges, on the other hand, is harder to stomach; after all, he abandoned his fiancee for her sister, and then embarked on an affair with a much younger woman! Yet André highlights the haplessness inherent in such a man and ensures that the audience is able to laugh both with him and at him. And as Leo – who in my mind is the true heroine of Les Parents Terribles – Dorziat is dynamite, showing us how a woman with a steely, seemingly unfeeling exterior can still be a hopeless romantic at heart.

Cocteau may have used the same cast in the film of Les Parents Terribles as he did onstage, but this is no mere restaging of a theatrical production in front of a camera. Yes, the entire film does take place inside, in primarily one location, but the camera moves throughout the space in a way that allows the audience to fully appreciate the claustrophobic atmosphere of the family home. Cocteau also utilizes intense close-ups, artistically framed shots and unconventionally timed cuts to guide the audience’s’ eyes and highlight specific aspects of his cast’s performances in a way that would not have been available to him during a theatrical production.

These careful technical choices add an element of intimacy, bordering on voyeurism, to the film that one cannot imagine being able to recreate on a stage. It’s a masterful case study in adaptation and a reminder that film and theater, while similar methods of storytelling, are not the same thing and cannot be treated as such if either is to succeed.

Les Parents Terrible: Conclusion

A cautionary tale of what happens when familial love and romantic love cross paths, Les Parents Terribles deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Cocteau’s other, more widely-seen masterpieces. Beautifully restored in all its crisp black-and-white glory, the film is timeless enough to have been released yesterday.

What do you think? Does Les Parents Terribles sound like a classic film worth seeking out? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Les Parents Terribles was released on Blu-ray by the Cohen Media Group on October 30, 2018.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=9h2Az5hTOAI