Emile and Marguerite, an elderly married couple in their early 70s, have been loathing each other for years for killing each other’s pets that each have had since the death of their first spouses. The anger between them has given way to a mute exchange of vicious notes, a shared life to separate beds and separate larders. However, they are soon to understand that they cannot live without each other.
Taking marriage born of a desperate need for companionship and following it to its devastation, Simenon patiently makes hate almost as alluring as love. The storyline of the LE CHAT is speculated to have originated from the author’s difficult relationship with his mother. The adaptation crosscuts between three stages of Emile and Marguerite’s relationship: Where they meet; the age of resentment; and the cold war era.
