Sharon Stone! Isabelle Huppert! SVU! WTF?
I admit I didn't think much of the news last month that French film icon Isabelle Huppert would make a guest appearance on Law & Order: SVU. Leslie Caron and Jeanne Moreau had famously (and with dignity) preceded her on the series, and really, when you've won a César Award, a BAFTA Award and two Cannes Film Festival prizes for Best Actress, what else is left career-wise but to join NBC's procedural institution for a night? Right? Right. And then I watched the episode.
It's not like Huppert had the show to herself or anything: Sharon Stone's own ongoing guest arc as assistant D.A. Jo Marlowe was nearing its own zenith as well. And when Huppert's "French and mentally unbalanced" Sophie was accused of kidnapping her 8-year-old son in a plot to flee to China, you couldn't help but anticipate a hardcore showdown between the two actresses. Viewers kind of got it, but as the episode spun more and more wildly out of control -- [SPOILER ALERT] the real abductor drives off a bridge, killing himself and the child -- SVU was no longer simply Wednesday night's ham-fisted bastion of deduction, intuition and catharsis. It was out-of-this-world melodrama.
Seriously, I cannot overstate the freakazoid batshit texture of what happened. Mostly I just need to know: Did you see what I saw? Especially at the end:
· Did Sophie really shoot Melinda Warner when her husband ducked?
· Did Stabler really crawl through an airduct to break up the Marlowe/Sophie stand-off?
· Did Marlowe really attempt to talk Sophie off the ledge by recounting her own double mastectomy that cost her her lover?
· Did the pistol-wielding Huppert really keep a straight face while delivering lines like "You can tell God -- in person!" to the husband who tearfully confessed to the fatally botched kidnapping?
· Did Marlowe really offer the boy's corpse to Sophie, like a peace offering, entreating, "Your son needs you!"
· Did I really see Michael Haneke's favorite devastated heroine cradling and singing a French lullaby to her dead kid on a morgue floor?
Moreover, was this all one big joke from the James Franco school of ironic performance art? I'm really asking, folks. Help! Let's talk this one through.
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Comments
It's a low quality review, VanAirsdale ! You think you are smart?
People do not care about your WTF-ing things. And what about MH, she was very dramatic too!
This French actress is much, much better than your American TV stars, for own consummation.
I saw this episode on TV last night and I thought it was one of the weakest episodes of SVU I have ever seen. I noticed Sharon Stone but I did not notice who the famous French actress was at the time of the show (only this article made me aware of who she is). I thought both husband and wife (French actress) were more like cartoon characters than a real couple having problems. Very disappointing episode.
Why the long face, Sharon?
Hence the low-quality comment? Regardless, I'll try to improve!
That episode was batshit crazy. The child-actor was the only believable one of the bunch!
There was an equally bad episode of SVU, called Bedtime, a few weeks back. It had Jaclyn Smith (of Charlie's angels), Morgan Fairchild and also Ann-Margret. Great cast but a snoozer of a plot. I hope this is not a trend.
I've only started watching SVU since Sharon Stone joined the cast. I caught it by accident a few weeks ago, and I sort of love her on it?
Anyway, the last five minutes of this episode was the craziest five minutes I've seen on TV in ages. When they cut to the shot of Sharon carrying the kid, I just completely lost it. I just have to picture it in my head and need to stifle the giggles. How any of them did this episode with straight face is beyond me.
It was ridiculous. And YES, they really only conveyed the big car crash via police radio, with our leads listening in with mildly worried faces... and YES then we watched a stupidly long shot of the car being lifted out of the water for no reason (they wouldn't have recovered the bodies from the car first?)... and YES Stabler's cell phone loudly beeped with a text message of who the real kidnapper was while he was airduct-surfing right over the head of the hostage-taker... and YES it's an hour of my life I'll never get back.
SVU must be canceled, because the lack of intelligence is a diagnose for most of SVU fans . The most of them still have an acne.
LOL, the look on their faces when the car crashes. I can only imagine the direction ahead of time: "All right, so the car is crashing. Let's see your concerned faces! Think of your paycheck! Jeff Zucker's lighting it on fire. And you can smell it! It'll be a month before accounting can replace it! Annnnd action!
There was more stiff acting on this season finale than on both of the Weekend At Bernie's movies. It was so bad that I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I knew I would be rewarded with a new ridiculous premise followed by something even more ridiculous with every word of lame-brained dialogue that was uttered -- and I was truly rewarded when Sharon Stone grabbed the ice-cold corpse of the dead boy and presented it to the mother. This was bad TV of Brobdingnagian proportions. The only thing that could have saved it would have been if the crazy French lady killed off the entire cast and then dragged the scriptwriters on to the set and shot them too. So much for a happy ending.
I couldn't agree more with your take on this! I tuned in solely for Isabelle Huppert, and was STUNNED and amused by the entire spectacle. I asked myself the exact same James Franco/performance art question. It was pure Grand Guignol. And, yes... WTF?
Exactly. This.
NOT KNOWING WHO ISABELLE HUPPERT IS TO ME A DISASTER. THERE IS LIFE OUT OF THE US AND MAYBE IF SOME OF YOU SPOKE AT LEAT 2 LANGUAGES OR MORE YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT EUROPEAN CINEMA IS 100 % BETTER AND THE ACTORS ARE 100% MORE QUALIFIED AND BETTER THAN THE PITIFUL CRUISES AND PITTS OF LIFE. I AM SAYING THAT AS AMERICANS DO NOT LIKE EVEN TO WATCH FILSM WITH SUBTITLES LET ALONE IN THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE. SHARON IS AN EXCEPTION. SHE IS SMART AND A STRONG ACTRESS AND CERTAINLY BELONGS TO ANOTHER LEVEL OF ACTORS. BOTTOM LINE IS AMERICAN TV SUCKS. MAYBE YOU WANT TO WATCH DIABOLIQUE WITH SHARON AND ANOTHER FRENCH ICON ISABELLE ADJANI SO YOU CAN GET MORE FAMILIAR WHAT IS WORKING WITH REAL ACTORS IS ALL ABOUT. AGAIN SHARON REALLY DELIVERED A GREAT PERFORMANCE IN 1996.
if I may I grew up in France and Isabelle Hupert is the symbol of the typical french melo drama BS movies that I could never stood. Like Seth McFarlane said: "hey french people, a sad and depress guy looking poor smoking a cigarette does not make a good movie"
To many Frenches (fortunatly not all) Art does have to mean drama and boring, please save SVU of that crap.
That was the one of the worst episod I have seen so far. As usual, great acting of Isabelle Hupert but in such a crapy piece that I want to forget it asap, as usual.
I'm from India, and I thought I was watching a Bollywood movie! Talk about lame... and I used to be a fan, but the show has really declined over the last two years, becoming more and more sensational, with poorer plot lines and weaker acting. too bad they canceled the original L&O and not this one.
Sorry, J, couldn't hear you, what was that again?
Guys, guys, guys, or ladies. You're all missing the point here. The episode was a CLASSIC. It belongs up there in the pantheon of "so bad it's brilliant." We’re talking "Showgirls" bad here.
Batshit crazy is the perfect description of Sharon Stone's performance. She's supposed to be tough ex cop, Elliot's former partner, who's now an ADA. You'd think she'd be strong enough to get through a simple interrogation without crying or emoting or ass off. But no, EVERY SCENE was played like she had just lost her mother or favorite cat.
And then there was her BRILLIANT LINE. You all missed that one. It was when she was interrogating Isabelle Huppert, a French woman, so obviously she had to say: "You can, Can Can your ass off sister but you can't hide from the truth." My wife and I had to pause the DVR for that one. When we finally recovered, we knew we were in rarified air. This was going to be night of classic television and we weren't disappointed. Sharon Stone went on to fill every moment with deeply felt poignancy and resonance. It was tour de force performance that left teeth marks on the SVU set and it was DEAD WRONG. Lady you’re an ex cop and an ADA who prosecutes sex crimes. You’ve seen hundreds of these cases. If you invested this much drama and feeling in every case you’d have been shot by your partners or carted off to the loony bin years ago. But I guess if you’re Sharon Stone reduced to slumming in TV your thinking is: “I’m gonna show these TV actors how it's done. Yeah, bitches, I got my Emmy speech already written and ready to go. I just have to figure out what I'm going to wear to the ceremonies. Oh yeah..."
No, VT, you’re dead right. You weren’t hallucinating. What you were watching was batshit crazy and we are all the better for it.
I am a fan of SVU, and I just watched this episode. I thought Isabelle Huppert was outstanding. Yes, the script of this episode is crap, but the performance of Isabelle Huppert is incredible. Sharon Stone is very pale in comparison. It has been the same since she started on SVU, she looks like she is reading her lines from the cue cards. She does not look real. Isabelle Huppert is the opposite. She is really into her role, and you can feel the real emotions. What a difference. Kudos to Isabelle Huppert for doing this. She was a mile above the rest of the cast.
Yes, Isabelle Huppert, as always, gave a performance that put the rest to shame. The script may have been lousy, but Huppert made it worth watching. She is always authentic.
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Loved your review of this season finale of SVU - but you forgot to mention the lunacy of Olivia (the usually better utilised Ms Hargitay) performing surgery on the little used Warner. The silliest ep, but not by much - it has not been a good year for SVU. I agree with Philippe - Isabelle Huppert is a class act, all the way and deserving of much better than this schlock. She is iconic - and shows what a piss poor actor Sharon Stone is! Abysmal perf by this Oscar nominee.
It was not the best episode but for the lack of sense, but the truth is that the episodes through the years not all of them had been perfect. I am a loyal fan of SVU Law and order and I watched for better or worst lollll 😉 I just love the show and I hope continues for many seasons to come.