Total Eclipse movie review & film summary (1995)

One would feel sorry for them if both men were not depicted in the film as unpleasant, sniveling, monstrous, egotistical and annoying. "Total Eclipse" is a movie something like "Withnail & I" (1987), in that it makes absolutely no attempt to make its abrasive characters palatable. Unlike the brilliant "Withnail," it lacks any sense of humor, and is under the delusion that its subjects are interesting because they are great poets. That only makes their poetry interesting.

The movie opens in Paris, where, in 1870, the 24-year-old Verlaine (David Thewlis, from Mike Leigh's "Naked") marries the 16-year-old Mathilde (Romane Bohringer). In 1871, he receives a sheaf of poems and a letter from Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio), then about 17. He invites Rimbaud to come and stay with them ("We are all impatiently awaiting you!") and Rimbaud arrives on the scene like a person who, even then, had seen too many Mickey Rourke movies. He puts his feet on the table, belches loudly, and makes detailed announcements about what he plans to achieve during visits to the lavatory.

Verlaine is seduced by the younger man, who toys with him, leads him on an emotional leash, and insults him. (Verlaine: "Do you think poets can learn from one another?" Rimbaud: "Only if they're bad poets.") They kiss for the first time the night Verlaine's wife gives birth. Verlaine, who drinks too much, sets fire to his wife's hair, laughs at her panic, and has a sexual affair with Rimbaud, who runs into the sea with his clothes on and otherwise anticipates Jim Morrison.

The wife is very long-suffering, as is her thin-lipped mother.

She threatens divorce but follows Verlaine to Brussels, has a brief reconciliation with him, and even buys his story that he abandoned his family for a year because he had feared he was about to be arrested. They decide to live together again, but he ditches her at the train station in a cruel practical joke.

Meanwhile, Rimbaud's psychological torture of Verlaine grows more intense, leading to a shooting incident, the two-year prison sentence, and the long epilogues of their lives in which nothing as exciting, or as appalling, ever happened again.