Damage

Damage is a psychological love drama in which the government minister Stephen Fleming is instantly attracted to his grown-up son Martyn's new girlfriend Anna Barton when he meets her for the first time. Anna returns Stephen's passion. They begin a secret affair so torrid that it borders on obsession. Meanwhile the relationship between Martyn and Anna becomes so serious that Martyn proposes to Anna. Anna accepts, whereupon Stephen wants to end their affair, but Anna insists on keeping Stephen as her lover. The film culminates in what the viewer has been waiting for all along, the exposure of the affair, with tragic consequences for the whole family.

I do not quite understand the meaning of the Danish title. Does Misbrugt ('Abused') allude to the trust that Martyn and Stephen's sweet wife Ingrid have shown Stephen and Anna, or does it refer to Anna's past, as the original title does? Anna is, after all, 'damaged goods'. The wounds to her soul, caused by childhood traumas, result in her harming others, albeit unintentionally. The film does not, however, manage to convey Anna's past and motives clearly enough.

I did not care much for the film. It is unpleasant. The main characters behaved too perversely for identification to be possible. The film's likeable characters, Martyn and Ingrid, were too peripheral for one to empathise with them. Yes, Louis Malle certainly makes very different films!