There's the old screenwriter's saying that has its roots with Anton Chekhov: if you show a gun in the first act, you have to fire it in the third unless it is a French movie where you can just shrug it off.
I say: bring it.
Andre Dussollier, one of the titans of French cinema (Google him - we'll wait here while you shout "That Guy!") stars as a blocked up 60-ish novelist looking for a place to stay in Venice. The real estate agent played by Carole Bouquet - another French ex-pat - takes him by boat out to the island of Sant'Erasmo. They bond a bit when the engine poops out and they have to row, and this is enough, I suppose for the two characters to fall in love. He asks her to marry him and, one "months later" title card later they are living together in their gorgeous cottage with a nice view of Piazza San Marco.
As luck would have it, Bouquet's ex-lesbian lover is a private detective. She's soon hired to snoop for the missing daughter. She leaves for Paris and finds her with a local “fallen patrician” who commits the occasional art forgery here and there. (Bouquet, in addition to being an ex-gay realtor is an expert appraiser, and knows the guy.)
As Dussollier starts learning more about his new bride's past, he ends up hiring the private eye's son (yes, the lesbian's son) who is recently out of jail to spy on his wife. Even though she's old enough to be his mother, the confused kid (whose known for beating up gay cruisers on the Venetian streets) falls for her. (Carole Bouqet's still got it – if you don't know the name, you know her legs and derriere from the poster of the 1981 James Bond flick For Your Eyes Only.)
What does get these people up in arms are accusations that someone is being untrue to their nature. A crime against humanism such as that can knock everything out of alignment and lead to terrible things, like being unable to write or make love. In an alternate reality where everyone eats outside with numerous bottles of wine, I can see why this would be a problem.
Unforgivable is a mess of a movie (and I don't really know what's so unforgivable) but it is the kind of I adore. It is simultaneously fantastical and deathly mundane. Were I looking to rent a piece of this life I'd sell everything I could to make the down payment.
