directed by Catherine Breillat France | Italy 2007 French director and provocatrice extraordinaire Catherine Breillat is finally tamed by a partially stilted adaptation of an early 19th century literary classic in Une vieille maîtresse. Asia Argento stars in the title role of Spanish courtesan who imperils the happiness of a young married couple, though it is model-turned-actor Fu'ad Aït Aattou as the married man and her doomed former lover who steals the show -- and not only because he has the biggest lips this side of Angelina Jolie. To further pile on the unusual qualities of a costume drama by the director of A ma soeur (Fat Girl) and Sex is Comedy, Breillat regular Roxane Mesquida (the promiscuous sister from A ma soeur) is cast here as the beatific virgin married to Aattou. Based on the novel by Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, Une vieille maîtresse tells the story of a 30-year-old libertine called Ryno de Marigny (Aattou) who is set to marry the beautiful and pure aristocratic child Hermangarde (Mesquida). Before marrying her, Ryno tells her curious grandmother the Marquise de Flers (French entertainment journalist Claude Sarraute) how he has been under the spell of La Vellini (Argento), an Andalusian courtesan, for ten years but that he has put a stop to it on the night before arriving at the marquise.