Another woman on the verge of another nervous breakdown Why did I watch I decided to watch a French love drama, and the film of the well-known French director Christophe Honore seemed to me a suitable candidate, although I was not happy with his All Songs Only About Love. But I decided to take a look.
Lena (Chyara Mastroianni) is a middle-aged woman in a protracted midlife crisis. After the divorce, she left her job and was left alone with two children. Fortunately, she has a large and, despite all the problems, a friendly family, thanks to which she still somehow keeps afloat.
The film begins with the summer arrival of Lena and her children in the village house of her parents, where the whole family gathers. We observe their relationships and see how old conflicts do not fade away, but new ones break out.
How to do this: This is formally a very simple and common style of psychological film, with its attention not to events, but to the relationship between the characters. Honore, for some reason, introduced completely foreign elements into it in my opinion. So he for some incomprehensible purpose literally "films" any memories and stories of the characters. It makes an unwittingly funny impression - well, why, one asks, the viewer to watch Lena's father sit in the car and wait for her husband to leave the house - is the text he says not enough here? This happens several times and always slows down the already not too fast action. The limit of inorganicity, however, in my opinion, is the false ethnographic "fairy tale-novel", about the queen choosing her groom - a dancer. Stylistics balances between ethnographic and grotesque, the stage takes a huge time - 10 minutes - and probably according to Honore's plan is very important, but such a rhythm failure can not go unpunished - it is not for nothing that the film in my opinion breaks down. .
Artists: The central role - the role of Lena - around which the whole action crystallizes, is given to Chiara Mastroiania - the daughter of famous parents: Mastroianni and Deneuve. I do not want to say that nature once again rested, but for me personally it is obvious that the actress did not cope with the role. Her constant hysterical outbursts do not look convincing, but only produce an annoying impression. Of course, here and the role is so broken, but from the performance of it there was only irritation - it did not work.
There is nothing to say about other artists.
Impressions: I'm sorry about this movie. He initially had a very good potential. The merit of the writer - he acted live, interesting people, and when the story was relatively evenly distributed between four couples in the family - everything worked. I was interested in this story because everyone in the ensemble played their roles and from this view of family-human relations turned out to be stereoscopic. Unfortunately, in the middle, just from the moment of the fairy tale story in the film there was a break. The time and place of action changed, all other stories came to naught, and Lena’s story with her annoying quirkiness and unconvincing tantrums came to the fore. And immediately it became lifeless and boring, harmony collapsed, giving way to the demonstration of random throwing of the heroine, leading to nothing. I am almost sure that her final “sensational” decision is no less spontaneous than all the others, and after the credits she will return to the children again and everything will repeat itself again.
On the margins: I express my bewilderment at the Russian translation of the film. It's a rare case where everything is bad. "My girl doesn't want to..." Whose is mine? What kind of girl? What doesn't she want? While the French original name literally sounds “No, my daughter, you will not go dancing” and with it everything is clear – because it throws the bridge from the “dance” false parable to the film. And despite the fact that the connection seems quite artificial to me, everything is completely clear here. In the Russian translation, nothing is clear, it seems inappropriate addition of “strawberry”, so that the audience, rubbing their hands, sit down, waiting to see what some girl does not want.
It has to have boundaries.
The film also makes me confused. Of course, the interpretations can be different, but for me personally it is obvious that the family is the only thing that keeps Lena afloat and saves from physical self-destruction, in the film this is clearly shown nowhere. To imagine the opposite, exposing the family in the form of harmful monsters — in my — too polemical interpretation.
Unfortunately, the potential is not realized and the film is a failure. I see no reason to recommend watching, despite the good that the film is present.
4 out of 10