Place Vendôme (film)


Place Vendôme is a 1998 French crime drama film directed by Nicole Garcia, starring Catherine Deneuve, and named after the Place Vendôme in Paris.
Deneuve won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 55th Venice International Film Festival for her role in the film.

Plot

Vincent Malivert is the head of a prestigious jewel broker's firm on the exclusive Place Vendôme. Hampered by debt and implicated in trafficking of stolen jewels, he commits suicide, leaving his wife Marianne to pick up the pieces.
Marianne, who has spent the last few years in and out of a clinic recovering from alcoholism, discovers a set of perfect cut diamonds in her husband's safe. Although she knows the diamonds are probably stolen, she decides to use this opportunity to rebuild her life and sets about trying to find a buyer for the hidden jewels. Unwittingly, she is drawn to a shady dealer named Battistelli, the very man who drove her into a disastrous and loveless marriage.

Cast

In the New York Times, David Kehr wrote, "despite its many flaws, the film never loses its focus on its fascinating central figure. Grandly suffering, grandly triumphant or just plain grand, Ms. Deneuve is a spectacle to behold."