? Along a posh
Parisian boulevard: an ornery TV actress wants a movie role; a concert pianist
wants to shed the trappings of his profession; an aging art collector wants to
sell; and a perky waitress, crossing the paths of all these important persons,
wants only to earn enough to pay for a flat. American director and occasional
actor Sydney Pollack plays a director for whom the actress hopes to play Simone
de Beauvoir.
+ You don’t see too
many of these ensemble-cast movies coming out of Hollywood, and most of the
recent examples are heavy works like Crash or Babel, but I always
like it when I see this sort of multi-character comedy-drama done well. The
waitressing job (she does room service too) is a nice device to have the poor
pixie interact with all of the ritzier characters, who have a lot but want
something else. The story does a nice job of introducing all the angst of these
people while keeping the tone light. Other pluses are the cast (especially
Valérie Lemercier as the actress, the most full-bodied character, and Cécile de
France as the waitress), the piano playing, and some fabulous views of the
Eiffel Tower.
- The movie is
sometimes serious, but rarely deep. Not a great flaw, as it’s not striving to
be.
= ***1/4 This charmer
isn’t really a romantic comedy, but it has elements of and feels like one, so
it’s worth a look for anyone who enjoys that genre. Lemercier’s and Pollack’s
half-in-French, half-in-English discussion of whether de Beauvoir was sexually
repressed is a seriocomic highlight.
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