Kennedy et moi

Jean-Pierre Bacri made weary existential fatigue fairly funny in such films as "Un Air de Famille" (1996) and "On Connait la Chanson" (1997). Here, he plays an affluent writer going through a sullen mid-life crisis - and you couldn't care less. Sam Karmann, the writer-director, really hasn't provided much reason for Bacri's dour mood except for a fling his wife is having with a doctor (which, given the sourness of her husband seems perfectly justified). The film lacks the crisp, tart writing of "Famille" and settles instead for interminable close-ups of Bacri's bored and depressed face.

When his character develops an tepid interest in the Kennedy Assassination as a way to break out of his funk (he doesn't intend to study it or write a book or interview Oliver Stone or anything, he just sits around watching the Dallas footage), the film becomes somewhat offensive. Using other people's tragedies as a way to find solace in life may be inevitable but neither Karmann nor Bacri have dramatized this man's spiritual crises well enough to understand why he would choose l'affaire Kennedy for emotional uplift. Kennedy's presence, like almost every one else in "Kennedy et Moi", seems arbitrary - not related to this uninteresting man's bad, bad mood.

"Kennedy et Moi" says no more than that even successful French writers get the blues (big surprise). Watching a middle-aged French actor mope around without a decent script, even for 1h 26m, is a chore no one deserves - not even the French liked this movie.