Cheek by Jowl directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod hosted
a screening of their new, and indeed first, movie in the
Charlotte Street Hotel yesterday afternoon.  Bel Ami is a
sumptuous transposition to the screen (by no means the first) of
Guy de Maupassant's fin de siecle Parisian novel starring Robert
Pattinson as Georges Duroy, the dissolute French soldier who
rises to the top of society and journalism by the simple
expedient of sleeping with the wives of his employers.  These
three married lovers are played by Uma Thurman, sly, slinky and
smouldering as the political editor's wife, who writes Georges'
articles for him; Kristin Scott Thomas, giving a brilliant
performance of vulnerability thawing into hysterical abandon as
the editor's wife, whom he seduces in church and viciously
rejects partly in order to marry her daughter; and Christina
Ricci, foxy and flirtatious as the deeply attractive Clotilde,
whom he loves above all the others, and whose pert little
daughter dubs him "bel ami."  It's a deepl