Coup de Chance is sort of like Woody Allen's paraphrased retelling (and he's done what I call 'paraphrased' versions several times in his work) of Unfaithful, with less on screen carnage and erotic sex... which itself was a remake of The Unfaithful Wife, and which is to say this is very much a Woody Allen movie. That doesn't mean it's one of his all timers, but it's not in the lesser range either. It's a good, comfortable middle-tier piece of drama with sprinklings, like a dusting of parmesan cheese on pasta, of humor, and while it may seem on the surface like Allen repeating his absolutist stance on luck being paramount to one's existence, I don't find it quite as dark as Crimes or Match Point.
He manages to thread the needle in making a substantial infidelity drama with a couple of satisfying neo-noir overtones (and that I found knowingly ironic Herbie Hancock music like this smooth graceful jazz overlaying sex and lies and body parts being transported here and there) while having a good air of "we know how this goes, let's have some more fun as we go into the second half." I don't know if Fanny should have been a little more suspicious or war of what goes on with her husband Jean so she isn't to make the plot make sense, or... no I do, and it's not the actresses fault (de Laage is more than *fine) but is my one main criticism (and the pacing of the first half hour is a little slack).
What makes Coup de Chance memorable isn't necessarily the story anyway, and if it wasn't from Chabrol or Allen before this has been the outline of countless melodramas and thrillers, rather it's the strength of the performers to bring the verbose Allen text to life and (minority opinion I guess) Storaro as cinematographer does some of his best work in... well, ever, always with a seamless ability with movement and always bringing out the rich textures to every setting (or dark shadows when called for).
De Laage and Schneider have decent chemistry, but Lemercier and Poupaud are especially good actors for Allen for different reasons; Fanny's mother has to be more of the grounded (less of a Great Attractive looking Person like de Laage and Schneider are or are meant to be), and everything about how the mother quickly has her suspicions and goes into what it's all about is my favorite part of the film.
Poupaud meanwhile makes Jean a wonderfully irksome, rich-person creep, totally insecure yet with so much monetary power, and yet not someone we can't recognize as a human being with all his faults (as in he isn't just some rich clod, we get why he has to keep his toy trains running and going, an example of "making his own luck" as it were). In particular his reactions to the private investigator is everything we need to know about how he thinks and will act and those scenes where he has to hold back what we know he wants to say with Fanny in the several scenes after that is just perfect. It's also cool to see how he has grown as a performer from his earlier roles like Rohmer's Summer's Tale (you probably cant recognize him from that unless you looked him up).
I get if this has the "well, nothing new, move on" thing with this filmmaker, but if this happened to be the last thing the 88 year old Allen put his name on, it not only wouldn't be an embarrassment but he could think to himself "yeah, that last one had most of what I want the world to know about my mindset... oh wait, I'd be dead so who cares." In other words, in that closing narration from Alain's novel regarding how luck and life go together, the part about (and here I am paraphrasing) how to be alive is having won the lottery means a lot to hear and in the context of the film and his career of (to me healthy) skepticism.
He manages to thread the needle in making a substantial infidelity drama with a couple of satisfying neo-noir overtones (and that I found knowingly ironic Herbie Hancock music like this smooth graceful jazz overlaying sex and lies and body parts being transported here and there) while having a good air of "we know how this goes, let's have some more fun as we go into the second half." I don't know if Fanny should have been a little more suspicious or war of what goes on with her husband Jean so she isn't to make the plot make sense, or... no I do, and it's not the actresses fault (de Laage is more than *fine) but is my one main criticism (and the pacing of the first half hour is a little slack).
What makes Coup de Chance memorable isn't necessarily the story anyway, and if it wasn't from Chabrol or Allen before this has been the outline of countless melodramas and thrillers, rather it's the strength of the performers to bring the verbose Allen text to life and (minority opinion I guess) Storaro as cinematographer does some of his best work in... well, ever, always with a seamless ability with movement and always bringing out the rich textures to every setting (or dark shadows when called for).
De Laage and Schneider have decent chemistry, but Lemercier and Poupaud are especially good actors for Allen for different reasons; Fanny's mother has to be more of the grounded (less of a Great Attractive looking Person like de Laage and Schneider are or are meant to be), and everything about how the mother quickly has her suspicions and goes into what it's all about is my favorite part of the film.
Poupaud meanwhile makes Jean a wonderfully irksome, rich-person creep, totally insecure yet with so much monetary power, and yet not someone we can't recognize as a human being with all his faults (as in he isn't just some rich clod, we get why he has to keep his toy trains running and going, an example of "making his own luck" as it were). In particular his reactions to the private investigator is everything we need to know about how he thinks and will act and those scenes where he has to hold back what we know he wants to say with Fanny in the several scenes after that is just perfect. It's also cool to see how he has grown as a performer from his earlier roles like Rohmer's Summer's Tale (you probably cant recognize him from that unless you looked him up).
I get if this has the "well, nothing new, move on" thing with this filmmaker, but if this happened to be the last thing the 88 year old Allen put his name on, it not only wouldn't be an embarrassment but he could think to himself "yeah, that last one had most of what I want the world to know about my mindset... oh wait, I'd be dead so who cares." In other words, in that closing narration from Alain's novel regarding how luck and life go together, the part about (and here I am paraphrasing) how to be alive is having won the lottery means a lot to hear and in the context of the film and his career of (to me healthy) skepticism.