Saturday Night at the Movies
Le grand chill
By Dennis Hartley
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| Marion Cotillard in Little White Lies |
In 1976, a Swiss ensemble piece called Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000
The Decline of the American Empire
Which is a shame, because writer-director Canet has assembled a fabulous cast; the problem is that somewhere around the 90-minute mark of this epic-length (2 ½ hour) comedy-drama, he seems to run out of new and/or interesting things for his actors to do or say. The film begins intriguingly enough; a happy-go-lucky fellow named Ludo (Jean Dujardin, bearing an uncanny resemblance here to the young James Caan) hops on his motorcycle after a night of doing blow at an after-hours Parisian club, and promptly gets T-boned at an intersection by a truck when he runs a red light. As his friends gather at the ICU, we are introduced to our principal players: Max (Francois Cluzet, star of the director’s terrific 2006 mystery-thriller, Tell No One
As events unfold at the beach (and in keeping with the rules of the genre) each player shows their colors as an archetype (the free-spirit with commitment issues, the aging Lothario, the recently dumped single carrying the torch, the harried husband, the sexually frustrated wife, the substance abuser, the sexually conflicted character, etc). However, despite a script overstuffed with clichés and stereotypes, the talented and well-directed ensemble shines with genuine chemistry and warm, authentic performances. Where the director drops the ball is in the relatively tepid third act, deflating most of the dramatic tension with one too many self-pity parties and a subplot that has two characters running around in a sputtering state of gay panic. Still, there are enough compelling reasons to recommend the film; besides the appealing cast, DP Christophe Offenstein nicely captures the sun-dappled beauty of Gironde’s Atlantic coast, and there’s a well-selected soundtrack ranging from contemporary (The Jets, Damien Rice, Ben Harper) to nostalgic (David Bowie, Janis Joplin, CCR). Singer-songwriter Maxim Nucci (in a small role as Cotillard’s latest boy toy) performs a poignant original called “Talk to Me”. While Canet may not necessarily have anything new to say, he at least talks to us like we’re grownups.
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