Copacabana (***1/4)

If ordinary parents worry when their children rebel, what worries parents who are themselves rebellious? If they’re like Babou, the free-spirited mother played by Isabelle Huppert here, they worry that their children’s embrace of stability represents a rejection of their countercultural values. Babou’s daughter, who has followed her to exotic locales before returning to France, now wants to marry her boyfriend and live a normal life. She’s embarrassed by Babou’s antics, like putting on a sari to serve an Indian meal, to the point where she has disinvited her to the wedding.

And so Babou, heartbroken by this rejection, takes a job selling time share in a Belgian beach resort to prove that she too can live a responsible life. Babou walks the line between being fun and self-absorbed, but as a film character she (and Huppert) are entirely charming.

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viewed at Ritz 5 [Philadelphia Film Festival] and reviewed 10/16/10

In Bruges (***)

I’ve never understood why people like seeing the same old locations over and over again. Playwright-cum-filmmaker Martin McDonagh must have thought that too. Inspired by a trip to what’s referred to here as the “best-preserved medieval town in he whole of Belgium,” he decided to set a comedy-thriller about a couple of Irish hit men there. Brendan Gleeson is the older and wiser of the two, an old pro who relishes the opportunity to do a little sightseeing, while Colin Farrell is the neophyte, whose interest in Belgian culture extends only to the beer and the women. (“If I’d grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.”)

As the two partners in crime await the call from their boss (Ralph Fiennes), who’s sent them to the Flemish city to hide out after a botched job, they bicker, sightsee, drink, and somehow pick a fight with a dwarf who’s in town filming a movie. While edging toward buddy comedy on the one hand, it has a serious side also, and it is this that drives the climax, which moves into thriller territory. The one thing missing is anything about Belgium. Entirely in English, the movie merely uses the locale for scenery.

There’s something contrived about the plotting, especially the too-perfect, almost Shakespearean ending, and these guys seem a bit too nice to be hit men, but it’s undeniably clever, and the comedy comes naturally off the interplay of the two principals. Offering a little something for every taste, this is a good movie for people disagreeing about what to see.

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viewed 2/7/08; reviewed 2/14/08