Movie Description
The Lover is a 1992 romantic drama film produced by Claude Berri and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. Based on the semi-autobiographical 1984 novel by Marguerite Duras, the film details the illicit affair between a teenage French girl and a wealthy Chinese man in 1929 French Indochina. In the screenplay written by Annaud and Gérard Brach, the ?15 1?2-year-old protagonist is portrayed by actress Jane March, who turned eighteen shortly after filming began. Her lover is portrayed by actor Tony Leung Ka-fai.
Production began in 1989, with filming commencing in 1991. The film made its theatrical debut on 22 January 1992 in France, with an English release in the United Kingdom in June and in the United States on 30 October of the same year. The film was nominated for the 1992 Academy Award for Best Cinematography and won the Motion Picture Sound Editors' 1993 Golden Reel Award for "Best Sound Editing — Foreign Feature". At the 1993 César Awards in France, the film was nominated for seven awards, and won the Award for Best Original Music. The film was a box office success, and received mostly positive reviews from the general audience along with mostly negative reviews from American critics. Overall, the film's performances and cinematography were generally praised.