I came to this movie with no expectations. I knew I'd seen Melanie Laurent before, but couldn't remember where from. I didn't watch the trailer, all I had was the two sentence description on Netflix. Going in cold, I have to say, I really enjoyed this.
Movies depend on forgiveness. Plots are never perfect; there is always something that the audience has to agree to ignore. Characters, accents, real life details... the audience has to put those aside to enjoy the movie. In some ways, movies have an "enjoyment ATM card". If it stars your favourite actor, your card starts with a positive balance. Favourite director, same thing. Hopefully, we click "play" with some degree of goodwill built into the process, giving a starting positive balance of some amount.
Then the movie starts, and as you are watching, things either increase the balance on your card, or decreases it. Hopefully, you finish the film with a positive balance. But the slips in the movie will eat away at your balance to the point that, if there are too many of them, you finish the movie with negative enjoyment. Sometimes, a movie is so bad that you exceed your credit limit before it ends, and you stop watching. (I'm looking at you, Michael Bay.)
In this case, the storyline is a little bit lightweight, and they make a few wrong turns in telling the story. These mishaps will leave a definite negative entry on your enjoyment balance sheet. Depending on how much you have enjoyed the movie to that point, you may end up with a negative balance.
For me, there were enough positives in the movie that, when the plot holes showed up, I had enough on my card to forgive them for their screenwriting sins and keep the balance in black.
Among the positives, the acting was superb, and in particular the actress playing Alex was a real delight. Isabelle Adjani makes an impact in a small role, and if you don't know her age, you might be shocked to find out what it actually is.
Visually, it's a beautiful film to watch. The locations are spectacular, and the action scenes are very well choreographed. Throughout the film there is a frequent change of the colour palette as it moves from sequence to sequence, much in the way that Kill Bill vol. 1 did in a more exaggerated manner. The movement from a beige base to the blue of the ocean, back to beige, to the green of the forest, to the coldness of the forest at night, back to beige, then to the red in a private screening room.... It's another way that the movie continues to engage with the viewer and contribute positively to the experience.
There is a wonderful action sequence involving Alex that really has no business being in the movie from a storytelling perspective. But it was done so creatively that, for me, it added to the enjoyment rather than detracted from it. Later on, there's another sequence which begins with the majestic line (en anglais) "We're taking a ferry to Italy tonight. We're going to get revenge for my bunny." Again, from a storytelling perspective it could have been shorter. Given its place in the timing of the movie - at the 70% mark - one might hope that they would speed things up a bit to get to the end. But the scene is executed (ha ha) so beautifully that again, it's a positive not a negative for me. However, they did go to the style well a few too many times. There is a sequence in the last act where Caroline unexpectedly has a conversation with someone while she's doing something. It's cute, but that is one of several cuts that probably should have been made to the film. It takes far too much at that point of the movie that the overall pacing is hurt.
Lawyers have a saying: "When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue the facts. When both are against you, just argue." That is kind of what we have here. Melanie Laurent had a script that was against her. What she did was to concentrate as much as she could on what we see on the screen to make it a positive experience. I think she succeeded, and I hope she gets the opportunity to direct many more movies for years to come. But with better scripts.
