Jean-Jacques Annaud proved himself a master filmmaker with his very first feature, the superb Black and White in Color. Although his next, Coup de tete, was worthy, too, he then veered into big, Hollywood-oriented films, meant somehow to combine the classy with the audience-coddling. Of these, Quest for Fire was the best, The Name of the Rose the worst. Now Annaud has adapted (with Gerard Brach) an even much sleazier international bestseller than Umberto Eco's: the insufferable Marguerite Duras's allegedly autobiographical The Lover. This is the tale of the fifteenish Young Girl's getting inv...
