Eiffel

The movie "Eiffel" is more interesting from a historical point of view of the building of the tower than the fictional romance between its builder and Adrienne. But I must admit that the authors managed to create a credible plot by mixing the history of the professional career of Mr. Eiffel with a fictional romance where destiny plays a big role. Overall, this movie turned out to be a typical melancholy drama.

Eiffel is a new romantic biography directed and partly written by Martin Bourboulon, the director of the Papa ou maman film series.

The film is about the engineer Gustave Eiffel (Romain Duris). After helping to design world-famous buildings such as the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel is asked by the French government to help design a new tower. Eifel rejects the government, because he is already busy enough with other projects. When Eiffel sees his old love Adrienne Bourgès (Emma Mackey) during a dinner, his old feelings for her rekindle. To give her these feelings again, he tries to impress her and agrees to build the tower. So this becomes his new passion project.

The project of this biography of how the Eiffel Tower was conceived and built was already around 1997, but never really came up with a good idea or story to make into a film. Several film studios and directors have looked at the project, but have not come up with a film. In the end, the starting producer Vanessa van Zuylen managed to make the film together with director Martin Bourboulon. Together with screenwriter Caroline Bongrand, they continued with the project that led to the final film.

Unfortunately, all the people behind the idea and making of the final film are on the novice side in the film world, which unfortunately shows in the film. They chose to focus the film more on the relationship between Gustave and Adrienne than on the actual design or construction of the Eiffel Tower. The film quickly becomes a cliché romantic film about two old lovers, who struggle to pick up their old relationship again. For people who like romantic movies, the movie can be entertaining, but otherwise just come across as a standard romantic drama. People who would rather have seen the story of the design or construction of the Eiffel Tower should check Wikipedia or an informative YouTube video. The scenes of the building process of the Eiffel Tower are interesting to watch, but for this you have to get through a somewhat trite romantic film.

Romain Duris and Emma Mackey deliver good acting, but don't do anything special with the film either. In flashbacks, the viewer learns how the two met and how their relationship went.

I was lucky enough to see this film in Sydney for the French Film Festival. It captures not only a wonderful engineering feat, but also the thrilling life and times of the Eiffel Tower's creator. A man who was unrelenting in his desire to create a legacy, regardless of the pressure on him.

I can only hope that this film gets a cinematic release that it deserves in Europe and elsewhere.

I can't imagine if you leave out a parallel drama - Eiffel's love story - what would the ratings have been? If Titanic got a 7.9 and it's about a love story on a sinking ship, what's with all the 1's?

I found that the cinematography was good, acting believable, and the tower's history interesting.

So I'll give it an 8.

Beautifully produced film with great story, great filming, great actors, but spoilt by very poor ending. Eiffel, the architect of the amazing tower, is beset by huge financial problems, huge construction problems, huge political problems, yet suddenly we cut to the completed tower, with crowds cheering and champagne flowing, and no explanation as to how any of these issues were resolved! Did someone let an amateur editor loose on the movie?