Manu Payet playing against type does what he can to save a movie with no originality, a rambling scenario and a soporific staging.
Seeing the film poster with Manu Payet and his sad look, his 3-year beard, shaggy hair and a cigarette in his mouth obviously leads to the 30 year old uphill question specific to the French cinema : « He’s doing his Tchao Pantin ». Why not, but the movie should have neeb at least good, to have a chance to make it work
Manu Payet is Martin, an alcoholic writer, jaded and disappointed by love, comes back live to his father ‘s home(Fabrice Lucchini). His younger brother is the perfect opposite, he’s full of passion, reckless and falls in love at the first sight. When he decides to do everything in his power to seduce an older woman, his brother prevents him from doing it. At the beginning.
What is the topic of this movie ?? Is this a film about teenage love ? is this a film about the dangers of alcohol ? About love disappointments when you’re about to turn 40 ? To be honest, i can’t tell because I didn’t get what was the point.
I first thought it was because of the screenplay weaknesses you see in most French comedy when I realized it is actually adapted from a book of Nicolas Rey (former chronicler in a famous french tv show) who is also the husband of the director, Emma Lucchini.
Moreover, it seems the script is much darker than the book. I conclude it’s not a comedy. Great ,because I didn’t laugh, neither did other people.
Adaptation between books and cinema really is a headache for screenwriters. They have to make tough choices because they could not transpose 300 pages into 1h30 without changing a part of the story or characters. Nicolas Rey handles the script by himself and I wonder if someone looked over because it feels like pages are missing or have been mixed up. Scenes come ones after anothers without any link and dialogs are just average. As the movie goes on, the female character becomes ever more important and the father tries to exist although their roles seem to have been created just to extend credits. Personal request : We do not need 4 scenes to get that a character is alcoholic.
The directing is trite when filming a play for television is much more exciting than what is done here. We could temper and think that the goal is to enhance actors or the story but adding fixed shots to never-ending and sometimes useless scenes is an invitation to get lost in your thoughts asking yourself what’s missing in your shopping list.
And by the way, what about Manu Payet ? Considering the fact that script and dialogs (half of what he says is about alcohol) are not helping, he is not bad at all. He is even touching in this role of an alcoholic and kind big brother. He shows a new card in his game, far from the « one sentence, one joke » guy he was in movies like « Radiostars » or « Situation amoureuse : c’est compliqué »
You feel he can cry on demand with a just a look. He really threw himrself into this role (weight, beard, hair are real) and that demonstates how motivated he was to show he’s not only a funny guy.
Because of the poor quality of this movie and the role he played in, I can’t say that « he did his Tchao Pantin ». But as salespeople say, he got his foot in the door and proved he could perform more serious characters without being ridiculous. Regarding the movie, keep the door closed.
[sixthtype_review post_id=”20673″]
image source: Lions Gate Film
