A Life of Her Own

Cukor’s 1950 melodrama about a successful model and her ill-fated affair with a married man had the cards stacked against it from the start: a victim of miscasting, studio interference, and generally low enthusiasm. The results are rough but fascinating, with a standout lead performance by Lana Turner. Over the years, A Life of Her Own has gathered a small but powerful base of critical supporters, not least among them François Truffaut. As Richard Brody recently wrote in The New Yorker: “It’s as if the entire film, with its breath-holding look at the catastrophic love of a single woman for a married man, stays hushed in anticipation of romantic disaster.”