The Soft Skin

The Soft Skin (La peau douce) is a 1964 romantic drama film co-written and directed by François Truffaut and starring Jean Desailly, Françoise Dorléac, and Nelly Benedetti. Written by Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard, it is about a married successful writer and lecturer who meets and has an affair with a flight attendant half his age. The film was shot on location in Paris, Reims, and Lisbon, and several scenes were filmed at Paris-Orly Airport. At the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or. Despite Truffaut's recent success with Jules and Jim and The 400 Blows, The Soft Skin did not do well at the box office.

Plot
Pierre Lachenay, a middle-aged married father and well-known writer, lecturer, and editor of a literary magazine, makes it to Paris-Orly Airport in time to catch his plane to Lisbon. As he disembarks, the photographers who have gathered to greet Pierre ask him to pose for a picture with Nicole, a young stewardess who had caught his eye during the flight.

After delivering a lecture entitled "Balzac and Money" in a sold-out auditorium, Pierre returns to his hotel, which is also where Nicole is staying. He shares the elevator with her and then, having noticed the room number on her key, calls her from his room to ask if she would like to get a drink. She declines because of the late hour but, shortly after hanging up, calls back. They agree to go out for drinks the following evening, even though Pierre had been scheduled to catch a plane at noon.

On their date, Pierre and Nicole talk in a bar until sunrise, and then return to their hotel and have sex in Nicole's room. She slips him her phone number on the flight back to Paris, and Pierre tries to call her that night while he and Franca, his wife of fifteen years, are entertaining friends, but Nicole is not at home.

When Pierre gets hold of Nicole the next day, they meet up. He eventually begins to use excuses to get away and meet Nicole at the airport between her flights. When she has some time off, they arrange to spend the night together, though not at her apartment, as the landlady knows her parents. They go to a nightclub, where Pierre watches Nicole dance, and plan to stay at a hotel, but they do not check in, as the circumstances begin to make them feel sordid. Pierre takes Nicole home and invites her to go on an overnight trip to Reims the following week. She agrees, and, not wanting him to return to Franca, invites Pierre up to her apartment.

Pierre and Nicole drive from Paris to Reims and check in to an out-of-the-way hotel. He only agreed to his friend Clément's request to introduce a screening of Marc Allégret's 1951 documentary Avec André Gide so he could be alone with Nicole, but he has to go to a dinner, and then give his speech, and then go out for drinks with Clément, while Nicole sits alone at the hotel, cannot get tickets to the sold-out screening, and is repeatedly propositioned by a man in the street. To avoid going to a reception after the screening, Pierre says he has to return to Paris, but Clément surprises him by asking for a ride, so he agrees, only to ditch Clément and get Nicole from the hotel. She feels upset and humiliated, but forgives Pierre after he apologizes and describes the evening he has had.

After driving through the night, Pierre and Nicole reach a romantic inn. They enjoy themselves, until Pierre calls Franca to say that he had to extend his stay in Reims and learns she knows he is lying. Pierre drops Nicole off at her apartment and goes home, where Franca accuses him of having an affair. He says he just needed some time alone, but she does not believe him and says they should separate. Calling Franca's bluff, Pierre does not argue and goes to sleep at his office.

Franca informs Pierre that she is initiating divorce proceedings. When he goes to get his things, she vacillates between treating him coolly, hitting him, begging him for forgiveness, and kissing him. They end up having sex. As Pierre is leaving, Franca asks if he wants to return to her, but he replies that it would never work. When Franca's friend Odile visits and sees the state Franca is in, she fears Franca may attempt suicide and throws away sleeping pills she finds in the bathroom.

At a restaurant, Pierre gets embarrassed by Nicole's loud talking, and she asks him to take her home. Pierre apologizes and says he has had a hard week, and that he misses seeing his daughter every day. When Pierre later shows Nicole the apartment he plans for them to share, she says she has realized they are incompatible and breaks off their relationship. Meanwhile, Franca uses a receipt from the pocket of one of Pierre's jackets to pick up photographs taken by Pierre and Nicole on their romantic weekend. Franca then goes to a restaurant that Pierre frequents, tosses the photos at him, and shoots him with a shotgun. Dropping the weapon, she sits down, and a faint smile crosses her lips.

Cast
The film's screenwriters both have uncredited cameos: François Truffaut is the voice of the employee at the gas station at which Pierre and Nicole stop on the way to Reims, and Jean-Louis Richard is the man who incurs Franca's wrath after accosting her on the street in Paris.

Filming locations

 * Lisbon, Portugal
 * Paris-Orly Airport, Orly, Val-de-Marne, France
 * Paris, France
 * Reims, Marne, France

Box office
The film did not perform well at the box office.

Reception
It received generally positive reviews from critics upon its release, however, and its stature has continued to grow over the years. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 89% based on reviews from 28 critics, with an average score of 7.8/10.

Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "uncannily prophetic", and J. Hoberman of The Village Voice wrote a glowing review of the film, in which he said: "François Truffaut's fourth feature, The Soft Skin, has never gotten much respect -- even though many people (myself included) regard it as one of his best." Conversely, Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote that "Francois Truffaut's latest film is a failure. His triangle story is disappointingly trite in every regard and the conclusion, alas, is laughingly melodramatic."

Home media
The film was released on home video in the United States by The Criterion Collection, which described it as a "complex, insightful, and underseen French New Wave treasure".