Sommersby (1993)

(In French, On Cable TV, September 2022) As I age, it’s interesting to see actors-of-the-moment slowly slip into the historical category… and then have to watch older movies to see them at their box-office prime. So it is that, for me, Jodie Foster and Richard Gere were very much actors-of-the-moment—solid box-office draws when I really started watching movies, reliable headliners for whom much of their biography (or filmography) hadn’t yet been written. But while neither are retired nor on their way out, Foster is now playing elderly matrons, Gere has slowed down considerably with patriarchal roles and both are turning to character parts in smaller films. In Sommersby, though, ahhh—both of them are clearly the sexy leads we’re supposed to root for: him as a soldier returning in his small village after the Civil War, her as his putative widow who’s not overjoyed to see him back. And for good reason—clues quickly accumulate that he isn’t who he claims to be, and while that may feel like a deception from an impostor for many, it sure looks like she, and many friends, are only too happy to not have the exact same person back. The re-creation of a small village of the Reconstruction era is often charming, but the point here is the interplay between Gere and Foster as she finds herself married to a different, far kinder man, and just how far they’ll have to go in order to keep her honour when the consequences of his deception come calling. It’s all handled with a great deal of polish from director Jon Amiel, working from a script inspired by French film Le Retour de Martin Guerre. Alas, it may have been a bit too faithful—an ending that goes for romantic tragedy rings false and disappointing after such a spirited relationship between the two leads: This is one case where a big Hollywood happy ending would have been significantly more satisfying. Still, there’s something to admire about the success of Sommersby’s small-scale historical re-creation and the film’s two stars going through a complex relationship based on acknowledged falsehood. For fans of a certain age (or, for that matter, an increasing number of current cinephiles), it’s also a chance to see Gere and Foster near their peak as audience draws, with the easy assurance that superstardom confers.