Until September

By Tom Keogh

The late British director Richard Marquand had his share of hits (Eye of the Needle, Return of the Jedi, Jagged Edge), but when he was off his game (Hearts of Fire, The Legacy), he was truly off. The 1984 Until September is one of Marquand's misfires, though it is hardly an embarrassment. A love story about two strong-willed individuals, the film stars Karen Allen as Mo, an American tourist (from that other "Mo," Missouri) stranded in Paris for a few weeks. Crashing in a friend's plush apartment, Mo meets her handsome neighbor, Xavier (Thierry Lhermitte), a married banker whose family awaits him elsewhere on holiday. The two initiate a romance that finds them butting heads twice as often as kissing, with Xavier frequently flogging his overconfidence as a man of the world to a distinctly unimpressed, far from naive Mo. The more Xavier's façade crumbles, the nicer and more real he becomes, until he has to face the fact that his life of marital convenience and mistresses is a charade. As a peek into an affair that blossoms not because of Paris's effect on lovers but because of the gift of honesty, Until September is somewhat unusual.

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