This movie is getting a lot of buzz, but it was never screened for the critics here. So I went to the Angelika Film Center, my favorite theater, to check it out. I hadn’t realized it was a French film. About 90% of the movies out of France are horrible, yet get 90% good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (I used to argue with the Reader critic about this often). I saw people comparing it to “Triangle of Sadness” and Brian De Palma films.
To me it felt like “Knives Out Lite.”
The story involves Serge (Jacques Weber) who is a rich man who’s had a stroke, and a family that despises him. A woman named Stephane (Laure Calamy of “Call My Agent”) has tracked him down. You see, he had an affair with her mom and she wants to connect with dear old dad. He seems thrilled to see her. Perhaps it’s because he isn’t fond of the adult children that are still in his life. As the audience, we can understand her motives. She’s working a crappy job at a fish factory, and has a girlfriend that’s in prison. [Side note: I’m not sure what the point was of showing all the women naked in a changing room before going to work; it felt gratuitous]. Now, the women nude, fighting in a shower prison, made a little more sense (and reminded me of how much I loved the fight scene with a naked Viggo Mortensen in the sauna in “Eastern Promises”).
Of course, the wife (Dominique Blanc) and family aren’t thrilled by Stephane's arrival, but she’s so sweet, we’re really rooting for her. The wife is spending all his money. A daughter named George (Doria Tillier) is running dad’s businesses, and wants him out. She also wants Stephane out, telling her when she is leaving after her first visit, “Don’t come back.”
There’s an idiotic teen character named Jeanne (Celeste Brunnquell) who is a rebel, who just smokes and takes pictures of everything around her (I kept thinking she’d snap something incriminating, but that never happens).
There’s the evil housekeeper Agnes (Veronique Ruggia), who isn’t keen on being nice to Stephane, or bringing her drinks when serving Serge.
We learn things about each character that makes us not care for them. The problem is that these things don’t seem believable, and are also a bit flat. The most unbelievable is how Stephane doesn’t seem interested in money from Serge, but she takes a lot of abuse from the family, just smiling and being cheerful during her visits (aside from the time one of them searches her purse).
The movie was also predictable, and early on, I was able to guess the outcome (although I have to admit, the third act was a bit of fun).
One plot point was straight out of “There Will Be Blood”.
And, the score was horrible. At one point, the pipe organ made it sound like Dracula was going to show up.
My wife and I were very disappointed. 2 stars out of 5.