MIFF presents
The Unfaithful Wife
La femme infidèle
When
Tue 11 Aug 2026
Suspicion, murder and psychosexual paranoia abound in this twisted thriller from French New Wave titan Claude Chabrol, led by a coolly enigmatic performance from Stéphane Audran.
In this exquisitely calibrated homage to Hitchcock, Parisian insurance executive Charles Desvallées (Michel Bouquet, Night and Fog, MIFF 1966) begins to suspect that his wife Hélène (Stéphane Audran) is having an affair, sending him into an escalating state of paranoia – and towards a plan that will rupture the bourgeois calm of their existence.
With its chilly surfaces, precision staging and dark humour, this deliciously deviant drama finds the great Claude Chabrol (A Story of Women, MIFF 1989; The Butcher, MIFF 1973) on signature form, with the filmmaker’s then-wife Audran (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise, MIFF 2000; Les Biches) delivering a glamourous, emotionally opaque performance that’s ripe with depth and mystery. Critically acclaimed but initially unsuccessful with audiences, The Unfaithful Wife has gone on to become one of Chabrol’s most enduring and influential works, serving as the inspiration for both Adrian Lyne’s Unfaithful and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s recent Cannes Grand Prix winner Minotaur (MIFF 2026).
Content: Melbourne International Film Festival
One of Chabrol's mid-period masterpieces, a brilliantly ambivalent scrutiny of bourgeois marriage and murder that juggles compassion and cynicism in a way that makes Hitchcock look obvious.
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