You know my feelings on Marion Cotillard's performance in Rust and Bone by now. It was the strongest in what was the strongest film of 2012, yet she and it were largely ignored by the Academy Awards. Whatever, she still had a Hell of a year. Between that film and The Dark Knight Rises, she spent 2012 playing up her sexy side in very different ways, and now she'll do it again in an adaptation of The Diary of a Chambermaid.
Octave Mirbeau's erotic 19th century novel has been adapted before, most notably in 1946 by Jean Renoir. Benoit Jacquot (Farewell, My Queen) will direct this version, with Cotillard taking the lead role of French chambermaid Celestine, who works for various wealthy families and discovers the many sexual perversions they try to keep secret. For instance, her first employer has a boot fetish and dies with her boot stuffed in his mouth. In another instance, she becomes embroiled in the internal power struggles within a married couple. Seeing the seedier side of high-society ultimately has an impact on her own outlook.
Variety says this was a central role, not far from Cotillard did in La Vie en Rose, in which she appears in virtually every scene. Jacquot is also rounding up the Farewell My Queen crew, so once things kick off in March 2014 it should be a fairly smooth production. Sounds like the kind of material Cotillard can easily knock out of the park and take all the way to another Oscar nomination.
