I was so glad to see so many reviewers say that this is their favorite movie of all time, because it is mine too -- but I always thought I was the only one who felt this way about it! A large part of my sentimental reaction to this movie comes from the fact that Charles Boyer looked so much like my father did at that age, and this was also the last video my dad and I watched together before he died. When Marius comes out of the café to go to sea, his father is standing on the waterfront watching the ship. There is a stunning fast zoom-in to the back of his father's head that stops my heart, not just because I feel Marius' shock at the realization that he will not see his father again for five years, but also because Boyer looks so much like my own father in that scene. Strangely, when my dad and I watched this together, he caught his breath at this same scene, and said that Boyer looked so much like HIS father!
When Marius says goodnight to his father (Boyer) the night before he plans to run away to sea, there is a beautiful scene in which Boyer is walking up the stairs, then turns and says to his son, "You know, I always tell you that you have ruined my life, but ..." at which point Boyer clutches his chest and becomes so choked up that he can barely continue, and croaks out the line, "it's not true!" It's the most touching, understated scene between a father and son I have ever seen in a movie. (Tragically, Boyer's own son committed suicide four years after this movie was made -- it makes me wonder whether the poignancy of his acting in this scene sprung from his real-life feelings about his own son.)
And who can forget the loving, gentle lecture he gives his son later, when he comes back from sea and wants to take his baby back from Panisse. Boyer tells him that "love is like cigarette smoke -- it doesn't weigh very much -- it takes a lot of love to make 23 pounds" and that Panisse gave the bulk of it to the baby.
And what about Cesar's (Boyer) math skills when he tries to show his son how to make a drink and tells him to use 1/3 each of four ingredients. When his son says, "but a glass only holds three thirds!" Boyer shouts, "It depends on the SIZE of the thirds!"
From start to finish, this film depicts the gentle pathos and kindness of people who all know and love each other (as Marius says, "people who maybe love me too much!"). There are no villains. Even when Panisse (Maurice Chevalier) storms out of the café in a huff, saying that his lifelong friend Cesar (Boyer) has insulted him and that he will never set foot in Cesar's café again -- when someone asks, "What about our card game tonight?" Panisse gives a typically Gallic shrug and replies, "But of course I will be back for that -- what has one thing to do with the other?"
A warm, funny, and amazingly insightful movie, and a rare opportunity to see two French greats -- Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier -- play off each other and steal scene after scene from the young people!
