Nelly
CANNES -- The first thing beautiful wife and mother Nelly (Sophie Marceau) says when she discovers her husband of 12 years dead in their bed is "Oh, no, not now". It suggests a minefield of possibilities and it's a great pity that so much of what follows is badly targeted or misfires completely.
Despite Marceau's star power it's difficult to imagine audiences responding in great numbers to a film that cannot decide if it's a comedy or a drama, and at times is simply bewildering.
Director Laure Duthilleul, who had a hand in the screenplay, appears to be aiming for a sophisticated black comedy about a bright urban woman in the midst of a personal crisis but having to deal with a collection of clamoring busybodies in a very small village.
The humor is in very short supply, however, as what's going on is never entirely clear. Just before she realizes he's dead, Nelly entreats her husband seductively and later addresses his body with angry regret. And yet apparently she has taken his brother as her lover even though he is more smitten than she is. Such contradictions might well be droll, but not here.
Marceau appears entirely capable of playing a smart woman who is emotionally traumatized and whose mood swings take her from goofy confessions to angry denunciations. She does her best to infuse the character with sly humor but is let down by scenes that have little cohesion.
Unable to function in the circumstances, Nelly insists on her husband's body being treated so that it may remain on their bed for 48 hours. She speaks to the corpse with alternate tenderness and anger while activity begins to swirl around her.
While her two children deal with their own loss by mostly fleeing to the woods to play manic games with a friend, the villagers congregate with their expectations of what should take place. Nelly's lover Jose (Antoine Chappey) is a hapless fellow who decides he must build his brother's coffin. He constructs it in the marital bedroom, however, and there is a clumsy sequence in which it becomes clear that the now occupied coffin cannot be moved downstairs and so it must be hauled out of the window.
Meanwhile, in despair, Nelly goes to the woods herself and is only narrowly saved from drowning. The scenes of her anguish are well done and would fit in a totally serious film. Juxtaposing them with comic moments could also work but there's a sorry lack of genuine eccentricity and wit to link them.
The film looks good and is handsomely shot. Franck II Louise's music is engagingly cockeyed and jaunty. There is also some insightful dialogue along the way. "Maybe I was born to be a widow", Nelly tells her mother. And there are some touching scenes, such as when the daughter, played winningly by Pome Auzier, videotapes a message to her dad, puts the camera inside the coffin, and waves "Bon voyage!"
Sadly, such moments are few and far between and a disappointing film contrives an ending that is less wry and enigmatic than simply uninteresting.
A CE SOIR (NELLY)
A Marie Amelie Productions and StudioCanal co-production
Credits:
Director: Laure Duthilleul
Screenplay: Laure Duthilleul, Jean-Pol Fargeau
Pierre Erwan Guillaume
Cinematography: Christophe Offenstein
Editing: Catherine Quesemand
Music: Franck II Louise
Production design: Alain Tchillinguirian
Costumes: Sylvie Gautrelet
Cast:
Nelly: Sophie Marceau
Jose: Antoine Chappey
Serge: Fabien Zenoni
Rene: Gerald Laroche
Jeanne: Pome Auzier
Pedro: Jonas Capellier
Etienne: Louis Lubat
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 94 mins...
Despite Marceau's star power it's difficult to imagine audiences responding in great numbers to a film that cannot decide if it's a comedy or a drama, and at times is simply bewildering.
Director Laure Duthilleul, who had a hand in the screenplay, appears to be aiming for a sophisticated black comedy about a bright urban woman in the midst of a personal crisis but having to deal with a collection of clamoring busybodies in a very small village.
The humor is in very short supply, however, as what's going on is never entirely clear. Just before she realizes he's dead, Nelly entreats her husband seductively and later addresses his body with angry regret. And yet apparently she has taken his brother as her lover even though he is more smitten than she is. Such contradictions might well be droll, but not here.
Marceau appears entirely capable of playing a smart woman who is emotionally traumatized and whose mood swings take her from goofy confessions to angry denunciations. She does her best to infuse the character with sly humor but is let down by scenes that have little cohesion.
Unable to function in the circumstances, Nelly insists on her husband's body being treated so that it may remain on their bed for 48 hours. She speaks to the corpse with alternate tenderness and anger while activity begins to swirl around her.
While her two children deal with their own loss by mostly fleeing to the woods to play manic games with a friend, the villagers congregate with their expectations of what should take place. Nelly's lover Jose (Antoine Chappey) is a hapless fellow who decides he must build his brother's coffin. He constructs it in the marital bedroom, however, and there is a clumsy sequence in which it becomes clear that the now occupied coffin cannot be moved downstairs and so it must be hauled out of the window.
Meanwhile, in despair, Nelly goes to the woods herself and is only narrowly saved from drowning. The scenes of her anguish are well done and would fit in a totally serious film. Juxtaposing them with comic moments could also work but there's a sorry lack of genuine eccentricity and wit to link them.
The film looks good and is handsomely shot. Franck II Louise's music is engagingly cockeyed and jaunty. There is also some insightful dialogue along the way. "Maybe I was born to be a widow", Nelly tells her mother. And there are some touching scenes, such as when the daughter, played winningly by Pome Auzier, videotapes a message to her dad, puts the camera inside the coffin, and waves "Bon voyage!"
Sadly, such moments are few and far between and a disappointing film contrives an ending that is less wry and enigmatic than simply uninteresting.
A CE SOIR (NELLY)
A Marie Amelie Productions and StudioCanal co-production
Credits:
Director: Laure Duthilleul
Screenplay: Laure Duthilleul, Jean-Pol Fargeau
Pierre Erwan Guillaume
Cinematography: Christophe Offenstein
Editing: Catherine Quesemand
Music: Franck II Louise
Production design: Alain Tchillinguirian
Costumes: Sylvie Gautrelet
Cast:
Nelly: Sophie Marceau
Jose: Antoine Chappey
Serge: Fabien Zenoni
Rene: Gerald Laroche
Jeanne: Pome Auzier
Pedro: Jonas Capellier
Etienne: Louis Lubat
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 94 mins...
- 7/9/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Nelly
CANNES -- The first thing beautiful wife and mother Nelly (Sophie Marceau) says when she discovers her husband of 12 years dead in their bed is "Oh, no, not now". It suggests a minefield of possibilities and it's a great pity that so much of what follows is badly targeted or misfires completely.
Despite Marceau's star power it's difficult to imagine audiences responding in great numbers to a film that cannot decide if it's a comedy or a drama, and at times is simply bewildering.
Director Laure Duthilleul, who had a hand in the screenplay, appears to be aiming for a sophisticated black comedy about a bright urban woman in the midst of a personal crisis but having to deal with a collection of clamoring busybodies in a very small village.
The humor is in very short supply, however, as what's going on is never entirely clear. Just before she realizes he's dead, Nelly entreats her husband seductively and later addresses his body with angry regret. And yet apparently she has taken his brother as her lover even though he is more smitten than she is. Such contradictions might well be droll, but not here.
Marceau appears entirely capable of playing a smart woman who is emotionally traumatized and whose mood swings take her from goofy confessions to angry denunciations. She does her best to infuse the character with sly humor but is let down by scenes that have little cohesion.
Unable to function in the circumstances, Nelly insists on her husband's body being treated so that it may remain on their bed for 48 hours. She speaks to the corpse with alternate tenderness and anger while activity begins to swirl around her.
While her two children deal with their own loss by mostly fleeing to the woods to play manic games with a friend, the villagers congregate with their expectations of what should take place. Nelly's lover Jose (Antoine Chappey) is a hapless fellow who decides he must build his brother's coffin. He constructs it in the marital bedroom, however, and there is a clumsy sequence in which it becomes clear that the now occupied coffin cannot be moved downstairs and so it must be hauled out of the window.
Meanwhile, in despair, Nelly goes to the woods herself and is only narrowly saved from drowning. The scenes of her anguish are well done and would fit in a totally serious film. Juxtaposing them with comic moments could also work but there's a sorry lack of genuine eccentricity and wit to link them.
The film looks good and is handsomely shot. Franck II Louise's music is engagingly cockeyed and jaunty. There is also some insightful dialogue along the way. "Maybe I was born to be a widow", Nelly tells her mother. And there are some touching scenes, such as when the daughter, played winningly by Pome Auzier, videotapes a message to her dad, puts the camera inside the coffin, and waves "Bon voyage!"
Sadly, such moments are few and far between and a disappointing film contrives an ending that is less wry and enigmatic than simply uninteresting.
A CE SOIR (NELLY)
A Marie Amelie Productions and StudioCanal co-production
Credits:
Director: Laure Duthilleul
Screenplay: Laure Duthilleul, Jean-Pol Fargeau
Pierre Erwan Guillaume
Cinematography: Christophe Offenstein
Editing: Catherine Quesemand
Music: Franck II Louise
Production design: Alain Tchillinguirian
Costumes: Sylvie Gautrelet
Cast:
Nelly: Sophie Marceau
Jose: Antoine Chappey
Serge: Fabien Zenoni
Rene: Gerald Laroche
Jeanne: Pome Auzier
Pedro: Jonas Capellier
Etienne: Louis Lubat
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 94 mins...
Despite Marceau's star power it's difficult to imagine audiences responding in great numbers to a film that cannot decide if it's a comedy or a drama, and at times is simply bewildering.
Director Laure Duthilleul, who had a hand in the screenplay, appears to be aiming for a sophisticated black comedy about a bright urban woman in the midst of a personal crisis but having to deal with a collection of clamoring busybodies in a very small village.
The humor is in very short supply, however, as what's going on is never entirely clear. Just before she realizes he's dead, Nelly entreats her husband seductively and later addresses his body with angry regret. And yet apparently she has taken his brother as her lover even though he is more smitten than she is. Such contradictions might well be droll, but not here.
Marceau appears entirely capable of playing a smart woman who is emotionally traumatized and whose mood swings take her from goofy confessions to angry denunciations. She does her best to infuse the character with sly humor but is let down by scenes that have little cohesion.
Unable to function in the circumstances, Nelly insists on her husband's body being treated so that it may remain on their bed for 48 hours. She speaks to the corpse with alternate tenderness and anger while activity begins to swirl around her.
While her two children deal with their own loss by mostly fleeing to the woods to play manic games with a friend, the villagers congregate with their expectations of what should take place. Nelly's lover Jose (Antoine Chappey) is a hapless fellow who decides he must build his brother's coffin. He constructs it in the marital bedroom, however, and there is a clumsy sequence in which it becomes clear that the now occupied coffin cannot be moved downstairs and so it must be hauled out of the window.
Meanwhile, in despair, Nelly goes to the woods herself and is only narrowly saved from drowning. The scenes of her anguish are well done and would fit in a totally serious film. Juxtaposing them with comic moments could also work but there's a sorry lack of genuine eccentricity and wit to link them.
The film looks good and is handsomely shot. Franck II Louise's music is engagingly cockeyed and jaunty. There is also some insightful dialogue along the way. "Maybe I was born to be a widow", Nelly tells her mother. And there are some touching scenes, such as when the daughter, played winningly by Pome Auzier, videotapes a message to her dad, puts the camera inside the coffin, and waves "Bon voyage!"
Sadly, such moments are few and far between and a disappointing film contrives an ending that is less wry and enigmatic than simply uninteresting.
A CE SOIR (NELLY)
A Marie Amelie Productions and StudioCanal co-production
Credits:
Director: Laure Duthilleul
Screenplay: Laure Duthilleul, Jean-Pol Fargeau
Pierre Erwan Guillaume
Cinematography: Christophe Offenstein
Editing: Catherine Quesemand
Music: Franck II Louise
Production design: Alain Tchillinguirian
Costumes: Sylvie Gautrelet
Cast:
Nelly: Sophie Marceau
Jose: Antoine Chappey
Serge: Fabien Zenoni
Rene: Gerald Laroche
Jeanne: Pome Auzier
Pedro: Jonas Capellier
Etienne: Louis Lubat
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 94 mins...
- 5/16/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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