Leaving

Leaving (Partir, 2009) is Catherine Corsini's French melodrama, available to watch online on iFILM. After twenty years as the devoted wife of a surgeon, Suzanne decides to reopen her physiotherapy practice and reclaim a corner of her own life.

Her husband hires Ivan, a Spanish ex-convict, to convert a room into her office. What starts as polite small talk between Suzanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) and the laborer (Sergi López) turns into an affair she can't talk herself out of. She walks away from money, status and a settled home for a man who owns nothing. Her husband doesn't beg. He calculates, and he holds the keys to everything she's leaving behind.

Corsini is less interested in the affair than in what freedom costs a woman who is supposed to have it all. Scott Thomas carries whole scenes with a look and a held breath. Eighty-five taut minutes that build to a gut-punch ending. Stream Leaving (2009) online on iFILM.