La Verité [Criterion Collection]

The main attraction in this downbeat, routine drama by director Henri-Georges Clouzot is Brigitte Bardot as lead character Dominique, a small-town woman who is undone by big-city life and inner-city morals. Told in a series of flashbacks during a murder trial, the complicated plot begins when Dominique goes to Paris and launches into various affairs with Left Bank intellectual types. After a brief fling with her sister's boyfriend, they quarrel and split. Time goes by and he scores in his career as a conductor while she deteriorates into prostitution. Fate tragically brings them together one more time when Dominique realizes she always loved him, in spite of everything.