The Reckless Moment 🇺🇸 (Lehkovážný okamžik)

Joan Bennett became famous not only in noirs for her attractive femmes fatales (for example in several films by Fritz Lang). Later in her career, however, she moved into the roles of caring wives and mothers, such as in German director Max Ophüls’ last American film, The Reckless Moment. Lucia Harper’s story is an apt example of the anxious existence of housewives in the golden cages of American suburbia. The mother of two spoiled teenage children and the wife of a perpetually absent working man coordinates the running of the entire household and the needs of its members, including thoroughly disposing of the remnants of a lovers’ nightly disagreement that goes beyond the law. However, the real stress and the enormous cigarette consumption that comes with it only begins for Lucia when a strange blackmailer with the charismatic face of James Mason appears at the door.

Jana Bébarová

The film is screened in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy in Prague.