I don't know if other viewers of this film got the same reaction I did: I came out of the theater dizzy!
There is so much in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's film to make a couple of other movies. He decided to make the picture in a style that is atypical of the European cinema these days, where slow films are the norm of the new ones that get to this country. This is more madcap Hollywood than arty French.
Isabel Adjani is a beautiful woman. Her Viviane Denvers is a caricature of the film divas of the 40s. Some people fail to see the humor in the way she comes across, and judging from the audience at my screening, there were almost no laughs. One wonders if the pairing of Adjani against Gerard Depardieu, an actor that hasn't played comedy too successfully, was to make the contrast more sharply between his Beaufort, the powerful minister, and the beauty of Viviane. Beauty and the beast, anyone?
Gregori Deranger, as Frederic, plays him well. Virginie Ledoyen, as the mousy Camille, is also good.
Maybe with a more sedate pace, the film would have been more satisfying.
There is so much in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's film to make a couple of other movies. He decided to make the picture in a style that is atypical of the European cinema these days, where slow films are the norm of the new ones that get to this country. This is more madcap Hollywood than arty French.
Isabel Adjani is a beautiful woman. Her Viviane Denvers is a caricature of the film divas of the 40s. Some people fail to see the humor in the way she comes across, and judging from the audience at my screening, there were almost no laughs. One wonders if the pairing of Adjani against Gerard Depardieu, an actor that hasn't played comedy too successfully, was to make the contrast more sharply between his Beaufort, the powerful minister, and the beauty of Viviane. Beauty and the beast, anyone?
Gregori Deranger, as Frederic, plays him well. Virginie Ledoyen, as the mousy Camille, is also good.
Maybe with a more sedate pace, the film would have been more satisfying.