User reviews

In March, I was looking forward to seeing 'La Belle Époque', the second and latest film by French director Nicolas Bedos, which was due to hit our local screens just in the week when the world stopped and cinemas closed. I had to postpone the meeting with that film, but I recently discovered that I had recorded his 2017 debut film in which Bedos also plays the lead role with his real life partner, Doria Tillier as his screen partner. The two are 'Monsieur & Madame Adelman'. He, Victor, is a famous writer, member of the French Academy and recently deceased. She, Sarah, is his fresh widow, who shares with a reporter, on the night of his funeral, the story of 45 years of love, betrayals, successes and disappointments. It is one of the films that I liked the most of all I saw lately - a romantic story, a social comedy, a critical look at the French intellectuals, a satire of racist prejudices, a feminist story but above all a sparkling and witty film, as French filmmakers know how to make when they are struck by inspiration.

The first third of the film is formidable. WOW! The old but still beautiful and elegant Mrs. Adelman remembers the love story between her, the Jewish student at the Sorbonne and the aspiring writer coming from a wealthy bourgeois family. We follow the first years of their relationship, the first books, the path searching, the failures and the successes. At one point we have the impression that we are watching a French version of 'The Wife' (which was released on screens in the same year - 2017) but the French film has more. Comparing the two films with similar themes - the lifelong connection between a famous writer and his wife who is something else and more than a supporter in the shadows or a muse - I think the the French film starts from a more original point of view. Victor needs security and inspiration, Sarah helps by lending him her name and part of her identity. Once success is achieved, the confrontation with routine begins. This movie is the story of a marriage. In most marriages, the first third is the stormiest and most interesting. The same goes for 'Monsieur & Madame Adelman'. From a moment on, the film loses speed, even the story seems to enter into a relative routine and fails to completely avoid the clichés. The audacity of the screenwriter returns only at the end, which holds a few surprises.

Nicolas Bedos is the director, the screenwriter and also plays the lead role. I don't think it's a coincidence that a cinema hall screening a Woody Allen movie appears at some point in the background. Woody is currently much more appreciated and influential in France than at home. Bedos borrows some cinematic elements from him, including the division of the story into titled chapters, but especially the insertion of situations and character traits that allude to his personal biography. Doria Tillier, the screen partner is also the director's life partner, and as spectators we can ask ourselves how much the two bring to the screen from their real life relationship. They both play very well in a story that spans almost the entire history of the 5th French Republic in the post-De Gaulle period, from Pompidou to 2016. They certainly gave a lot of work to makeup artists and hairdressers, but the result is almost perfect. The Parisian intellectual environment with its snobbery and rivalities is excellently presented, with ironic arrows at some of the sacred monsters of French literature and culture, including Jack Lang in a cameo appearance in which the former minister plays his own role as a speaker at funerals of the members of the French Academy. The feeling of authenticity is accentuated by the use of television reports of the time, documenting changes of regime and personalities at the helm of France. 'Monsieur & Madame Adelman' manages to be at the same time sincere and sophisticated, witty and critical, comic and moving. Judging by this debut, Nicolas Bedos is one of the most promising filmmakers of the generation of French filmmakers which is now reaching adulthood.

"Shot with a nimble-fingered, compulsively twirling and rotating camera, MR & MRS ADELMAN freewheels in an almost mercurial form through the tonal discrepancies derived from a mishmash of components: a heady rom-com about a girl sets eyes on her Mr. Right and never let him go, a cynical satire on a writer's block (Victor's unpremeditated fixation with being Jewish, he even alters his bourgeois, Gentile surname de Richemont to Adelman), fame and egregious ego, an astringent matrimonial drama plumbing a husband's sexual frustration and a wife's desperation to hold onto the breadwinner of the family, or a reportage on gender politics within a nuclear family, but between Victor and Sarah, the one who gets the oneupmanship is evident along the way, as the story is as much an affirmation of a wife's high-wire maneuver of molding her husband into the man she wants (if not necessarily she worships) him to be, even without that final volte-face, as a no-holds-barred dissection of a tumultuous relationship that often blights a middle-class union where self-efficacy is foregrounded."

An entertaining, smart, funny movie. Well directed, great acting, good production. Another dozen of these in the same year and the French have once again a film industry! One thing's for sure Nicolas Bedos is one talented guy.

This film veers between Woody Allenish interactions and social observation, "Scenes from a Marriage" and "The Wife". (If the latter film had not come out so soon after this one, it would be tempting to find a distant model for it here.) Sometimes it is wickedly funny to the point of biting satire, sometimes it is idly absurd, for long stretches it is touching in the way of any intimate look at a marriage. While it has many comic moments, it is distinctly NOT a comedy. It is rarely unwatchable, but does go on too long after a while. While there's a lot to be said for the different sections, they don't always add up to one film. A surprise for American viewers is Ronald Guttman in a colorful and very ethnic turn.

French film of the highest level. Sensational. Very intelligent, funny, inspiring, original, directing, actors, dialogues. Not to be missed for those who love cinema.

classic french cinema, full of psychoanalysis. fast moving witty and indiscreetly correct dialogue for those needing subtitles. what comes as surprise is the revelation, or at least the unmentioned-until-absolutely-necessary of who the madame is. this gave a entirely different, while parallel, level of information about madame and her extended family. we see only what we are allowed to see, but only once the viewer had been prepared. the essence of what is communicated can have other sources, other motives. as expected sex is in full Freudian motion and this particular French relationship is more passionate drama and manipulation than romance. poor guy was out of his league. viewed as unstated confirmation it will be liked in Hollywood New York, but, what with the state of things, it worries me. if possible, see the most excellent 2014 Turkish film Kis Uykusu, to understand how compassion is missing in the French film.

it is definitely worth seeing both as entertainment and education. could even change your world view. 7 of 10

Surprisingly captivating, the woman behind the artist, an atypical romance, sincere and realistic, from the 70s to the present day, passionate, normal people with their impulsive and emotional attitudes, which we love... depth and meanings... But the ending, perplexed, perfect, painful, understandable, justifiable, the double plot twist to crown this beautiful story translated or beautiful film...

There are shocking bits. The first half is rather hilarious but it get creepy for a while after. Then, back to funny and strange after. Overall, better than passable. There is an english film wading in similar waters called «The wife» if I recall.

The best movie I saw this year by far...Moving, witty, very funny, great dialogues, superb acting, a rare jewel!!!!I had no expectations about this movie based on the last french movies I saw but I left the theater in a lighter mood.This thriller reminds me old french school: Lelouch comedies and other great directors which are no longer among us.If you want to have a great time for a couple of hours, go and see it!

Saw this on a long haul flight: beautiful love story, well directed and put together. In essence it is the story of a couple from their acquaintance till death. Great fun, laughs and tears! It also takes you through the different phases historically and especially in France - as I grew up there, the familiarity might be somewhat biased - so really enjoyed it. Absolute recommendation to see this movie!

Nicolas Bedos has nothing to tell, and he wants to make it known.

Narcissistic gritty rubbish, crammed with clichés. It is pedestrian, long-winded, ugly, uninteresting, a heap of phoney playlets, all equally lamentable.

Apart from the makeup artists one wonders who worked.

We understand the poor psychologist (poor Podalydès !) who prefers to die rather than suffer the character's logorrhea. Unfortunately everything is first degree.

Not to mention the photographic filters supposed to convey a vintage look, or the walls of the Paris flat elaborately knocked down to suggest bohemianism. Everything is appalling, vacuous, supremely commonplace, particularly the dialogues, of bewildering poorness.

A movie as we never seen in the french landscape. A beautiful story of love. Doria Tillier is a great actress. Furthermore, the twist at the end show the genius in the Bedos' direction.

I was curious before watching this film. Nicolas Bedos is both brilliant and annoying. And he's often overplaying himself in real life like a bad actor.

This movie is very good. Even better than that actually.

The story of this couple is complex enough to avoid being a rom-com.

It is touching, clinically sharp, funny, sad. And most of all, benevolent.

The acting is excellent, especially Doria Tillier's.

The music is great.

I wanted to give 8 or 9 stars and settled for 9 because of the real life story between the 2 main actors (and scriptwriters).

Sharp dialogues, brilliant scenario, hilarious at times, touching at others. Lead actors co wrote the story. They also were husbands and wives in real life for years and their authenticity shows. Delightful. Nicolas Bedos is brilliant. So is Doria Tillier. She deserves more roles in more movies to touch millions more. A gem.

A virtue and a sin, in same measure. All the nuances of French cinema are present in this seductive-bitter drama in which the humor and the irony, the cynical levels and the cruelty in different forms, the love and the fall of love, the fears and the joy are reflected in strange and precise manner. But, it could be perceived as only a correct use of old recipe. The characters, the dialogues, the crisis, the stranger front to confessions of an old lady, her words changing everything again and again are good points because they are familiar. I love this film exactly for its French flavor, for the status of travel across influences and suggestions, for the cold honesty and for the precise traits of the characters, for the status of story about survive and for the last confession as basic proof of a great love story , more profound if you see, again, from the first scene, this profound seductive pledge for be part of the other.

A series of sketches of married life over four decades, starting in 1971 when Sarah, a doctoral student in classics, met the writer Victor Adelman. Sex, happiness, children, cowardice, binge drinking, deception, betrayal, secrets, fights, separation, return home, divorce - the life of Mr. & Mrs. Adelman as a couple has not been a smooth one.

Choosing to tell four decades of the life of a man and a woman, how ambitious for a first film! It sure was a risky move for Nicolas Bedos. But from the very first minutes of the film, you realize that the challenge will be met. The fledgling director has indeed the gift to reconstitute with accuracy the times gone through while proving able to make his characters age with naturalness. He also succeeds, with the complicity of his companion Dora Tillier, in making endearing a rather failed love story, ravaged by the exacerbated cynicism of Victor, a champagne socialist. Perhaps because everything is seen through the eyes of Sarah, clearly less neurotic than her companion. Written in an energetic language, in which all the words bite home, "Mr. & Mrs. Adelman" shakes the spectator, pushes him in his tracks, while arousing in him a certain melancholy, born from witnessing the failure of a couple that had everything to succeed, both physically and intellectually. If the fiction couple works only intermittently, it is not the case of the duo Nicolas Bedos & Dora Tillier, whose alchemy is perfect. A good point also to Pierre Arditi as an upper-class jerk: the way he throws his lines in the scene of the meal is great art.

Most movies stick to one story, but there are many all wrapped up inside this film about the lives of two artists. A classic tale about the artistic muse adapted for the modern age.

That was a surprise to discover that I passed by this movie. I am quite glad I corrected this issue as it is quite a masterpiece.

Very well written, very well played, quite believable.

I don't say it lightly, this is a fine gem. I was going to give it a 9 as I am rather picky about movies. It turns out that I am fiving it a 10 before plushing this review for I stand unable to find a single issue to pinpoint.

I will be sure to advice everyone around to watch that movie.

It was the first one directed by Nicolas Bedos. Hats off to him, I ll be sure to watch his other creation, especially if his wife is also working on it.