Pierre Marivaux was a celebrated French playwright-novelist who wrote the wittiest and most sophisticated romantic comedies of his age (the late 18th Century). One of them, “Triumph of Love,” has been made by director and co-writer Clare Peploe (“High Season”) and her producer-husband, Bernardo Bertolucci, into a sunny, high-style, beautifully verbose romp about sexual disguise, seduction, role-playing and reason-vs.-passion, unfolding at a splendorous Italian villa and featuring a marvelous cast.
The star, Mira Sorvino, plays a delectable princess who decides to right an old wrong and restore to the throne her rival Agis (Jay Rodan), who was deprived of his rightful claim and lives in hiding. To that end, she and her saucy maid Hermidas (Rachael Stirling), disguised as men, penetrate the household of Agis’ protector, philosopher Hermocrates (Ben Kingsley), and his spinster scientist sister Leontine (Fiona Shaw). Switching swiftly between male and female false identities, she manages to seduce everyone, shifting constantly between politics and eroticism.
Sorvino has a smile that enchants, a mind that entrances, a face that inflames. And she has tremendous support, particularly from Kingsley and Shaw, playing to perfection their roles of a woman-hating sage and his susceptible sister, two rationalists robbed of reason by love. Peploe stages the play with obvious relish.
Marivaux’s plays were a major inspiration for Jean Renoir’s masterpiece “The Rules of the Game” — and this comedy (translated by Martin Crimp) ages admirably and plays like a dream. The artifice may be ancient, but the thought and emotions — and especially Sorvino — are beautifully, refreshingly modern. “Triumph of Love” opens Friday at Piper’s Alley, CineArts 6 in Evanston, and Renaissance Place in Highland Park. Running time: 1:47. MPAA rating: PG-13 (some nudity and sensuality).
