Sometimes the difference between a veteran acting pro and a talented but relatively unproven newcomer can be seen in how they respond to being in a bad movie, specifically one bad enough that it must have been evident during its making. The principal roles in director Charlie Stratton's mishandled costume drama "In Secret" are played by promising, 25-year-old Elizabeth Olsen, still vying for career consistency, and 33-year-old Oscar Isaac, who showed what he was capable of under the watchful eyes of the Coen brothers in "Inside Llewyn Davis," but hasn't done much else of note.
The movie's based on Émile Zola's 1867 novel "Thérèse Raquin," and both Olsen and Isaac seem at sea as the orphaned, unhappy wife Thérèse and her lover Laurent, respectively. They mope and clench their way through the unhappy saga, in which the unsatisfied Parisian betrays her sickly, narcissistic husband Camille (Tom Felton, aka Lucius Malfoy from the "Harry Potter" films) for his strapping, narcissistic co-worker Laurent, a decision which proves to have deadly consequences.
There's no sense of passion between the leads, and the whole thing is filmed in a grimy, grey-skied, candlelit dimness that makes you wonder why any of these characters would even bother. On the evidence of this film, Zola's novel doesn't have much to distinguish it from Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" or Balzac's "Cousin Bette": It's just another tale of miserable, corseted, unsympathetic women being punished for daring to escape their dreary lives.
The only thing Stratton, a former television actor making his first feature, has going for him is the casting of Jessica Lange. She brings her A game to this stinker as the despicable Madam Raquin, the aunt who raises Thérèse and forces her marriage to her son. As events churn toward their inevitably crushing conclusion, Lange embraces the near-nihilism of the story with a vanity-free performance. She could probably tell as much as anyone how doomed this adaptation was, but she didn't let it slow her down. That's how an old pro does it.
-- Marc Mohan
Running time: 101 minutes
Playing at: Opens Friday, February 21 at multiple locations
Cast and crew: Elizabeth Olsen, Oscar Isaac, Jessica Lange, Tom Felton, Mackenzie Crook, Shirley Henderson, Matt Lucas; directed by Charlie Stratton
The lowdown: In 19th-century Paris, neglected and oppressed housewife Thérèse Raquin gas an affair with her sickly husband's co-worker, initiating a downward spiral. This gloomy, mishandled adaptation of Émile Zola's novel can't draw decent performances from its talented leads, making Lange's professional efforts the only positive takeaway.