Deception

Deception (Tromperie, 2021) is Arnaud Desplechin's French drama, available to watch online on iFILM. Adapted from Philip Roth's novel, it drops in on an American writer living in London exile and the lover who keeps visiting the rented studio where they talk through everything.

The film is almost entirely conversation. Philip (Denis Podalydès) writes, listens to women, and turns their voices into pages. His English mistress (Léa Seydoux) returns again and again, and they argue about marriage, literature, antisemitism, desire and betrayal. Hovering at the edges are a former lover stuck in a New York hospital bed and a student from an earlier life. Desplechin stages it like a chamber play — the bed and the writing desk pushed up against each other.

It screened at Cannes in 2021 and rides on Roth's words and the cast rather than on plot. This one is for viewers happy to sit with just under two hours of sharp, candid talk — a literary drama with almost no action and no apologies for it. Stream Deception (2021) online on iFILM.