La fille de Monaco

Greetings again from the darkness. I live a charmed life. Very few things are more frustrating to me than a movie that has one or more good ideas and manages to do absolutely nothing with it/them. Director Anne Fontame has a good track record, but here a few bucks tossed towards a screen writer would have worked wonders.

The trio of prestigious lawyer Bertrand Beauvois (Fabrie Luchini), serious security guard Christophe (Roschdy Zem) and wild child weather girl Audrey (Louise Bourgoin) set the stage for some fascinating interwoven story lines. Instead we get a few good one-liners and a confused mixture of funny and dark.

I am not trying to bash the film as it is enjoyable enough, but it is certainly a poster child for wasted potential.

Fontaine's new film seems on the surface simply a brightly colored Riviera toy, a romantic comedy with some Chabrol-eque twists at the end. There's a bit more; the salt-and-pepper casting of Fabrice Lucchini and Roschdy Zem is at least meant to be sly, the use of newcomer Louise Bourgoin an amusing experiment. Since this is Anne Fontaine, the comedy-drama is also a study of unexpected sexual attractions. It's a somewhat bizarre threesome: a famous lawyer, Bertrand (the soft, mercurial, witty Lucchini); his assigned and initially unwanted security guard, Christophe (the chiseled, tight-lipped Zim); and an air-headed but voluptuous TV weather bunny, Audrey (Bourgoin, a méteo presenter and TV personality in real life). But if the approach and the thinking are individual, the result is still pretty bland and generic.

Bertrand is a crack trial lawyer--and that's an excellent role for the ultra-articulate Lucchini. He's engaged in a high-profile trial in Monaco in which he is defending a posh lady, Édith Lassalle (a rather wasted Stephane Audran) who murdered, by stabbing, her younger Russian boyfriend, a gigolo characterized in court as having been spectacularly well hung. The family's rich, the case is high profile, and the boyfriend was a a sleazy, possibly mafioso Russian, so Édith's son Louis (Gilles Cohen) has engaged a full-time bodyguard for Bertrand.

He, Christophe, maintains his distance, but the cliché happens: Bertrand notices him and, not to be bothered by his hovering, invites him to dinner. There not being any real physical danger anyway, Chirstophe soon becomes simply Bertrand's girl wrangler, disposing of an annoying ex-girlfriend of the lawyer (Jeanne Balibar) by bedding her, then keeping Audrey at bay when she begins seducing the lawyer in the middle of the trial. The surprise (but isn't it another comedy cliché?) is, Christophe and Audrey have a history. Why not? She's screwed everyone on 'The Rock.' He pretends to be the strong silent type, but the new Bertrand-Audrey story complicates the buddy-picture aspect of things by making Christophe both more personally protective of Bertrand and dangerously jealous of him, when this strong silent type turns out not to have gotten that girl out of his system. Christophe reacts with repressed rage toward Audrey, and the film turns strangely serious. But not serious enough to make an impression. And the comedy wasn't funny enough to be memorable either. The screenplay might have worked better if Fontaine had chosen one direction or the other and flown with it.

Sure, this is a good cast and the colorful, free Monagasque atmosphere is made integral to the action. But truth to tell Bourgoin is just a tasty bauble who's not drop-dead gorgeous or soulful enough to have a great future ahead of her. Whatever they may have thought, Bardot she's not. Fontaine's strict directing of Lucchini (who is far wittier and funnier on TV and probably in his stage performances) and Zem (whose role remains relatively servile here), holding both back from "doing" much, or being fully themselves, fails to make the most of either. Lucchini is always fun to watch (and to hear talk) but he's more fun to watch when he's just being himself. It's obvious that a Chabrol treatment of this theme would be better and his recent 'Girl Cut in Two' has more depth--without having much depth.

Ultimately, and, alas, well before the last scene, this is a movie that disappoints. Will Sloan wasn't far from the mark when he commented that this illustrates Matt Groening's notion of "cinema's greatest paradox," that "the French are funny, sex is funny, and comedies are funny, yet no French sex comedies are funny." It's true of this one at least. A perusal of 'How I Killed My Father' and the less often mentioned but intriguing 'Dry Cleaning' will show how far this piece of frippery is from Anne Fontaine's best work.

'La fille de Monaco' debuted in Paris August 20, 2008, to satisfactory reviews. Shown as part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, March 2009. It has been bought for distribution by Magnolia Pictures for an early July US release. with US release planned for early July. 2009

French film "The Girl from Monaco" begins on a promising note with renowned actor Fabrice Luchini flirting with an older woman. He is unaware of the fact that this innocuous action is being watched in detail by a bodyguard whose services have been provided to him without his knowledge. This is just the commencement of a series of zany adventures involving unusual people namely a fun loving lawyer, a dedicated bodyguard and a promiscuous yet charmingly nubile weather woman. Although the title mentions the word 'Monaco' there is not much description of Monaco and its casinos. The film runs at a normal pace but gains momentum within second half when innocence is replaced by cunning. It is at that point some surprising elements are introduced to make the film appear interesting. Director Anne Fontaine has made quirky films in the past but 'The Girl From Monaco' is completely different from all her films. It tries hard to be a serious film but remains a comedy in essence. It is a film which one can watch with friends in order to have some good moments of entertainment.

My laugh meter was in constant activity throughout this film, one of the most entertaining French comedies of recent years. Anne Fontaine's witty script and assured direction gave me a lot of pleasure. The first scene between Fabrice Luchini and Hélène de Saint-Père--that amorous banter out of Marivaux--set the tone for me. Luchini is at the top of his form now, much stronger than he was in La Discrète or Beaumarchais l'insolent. He portrays the erotic confusion of the middle-aged man so well. Roschdy Zem, so often used as ethnic content in his films, here provides us with the (almost) definitive portrait of the loyal servant with his own agenda (cf. Dirk Bogarde in The Servant). Louise Bourgoin has a great natural comic flair that will serve her well in future roles (she outshines that other comic weather girl Michelle Pfeiffer in Up Close and Personal).

Anne Fontaine has given me so much satisfaction over the last ten years: I think of Nettoyage à sec, Comment J'ai tué mon père, Nathalie... She is a stalwart of the French film industry.

Director Anne Fontaine ambitiously tries to mix traditional rom-com elements with drama. If she had succeeded, La fille de Monaco could have been a standout movie in 2008. Unfortunately, the end result feels awkward and we are left unable to connect with the movie or the characters.

Fabrice Luchini plays Bertrand Beauvois, an elite lawyer coming to Monaco to work a high- profile case. He is assigned a bodyguard, Christophe (Roschdy Zem) and while in Monaco, develops a relationship with a quirky weather girl (Louise Bourgoin) who was formerly romantically involved with the man assigned to protect him.

Audrey, our weather forecast girl is considerably younger than Beauvois and her behaviour will remind many viewers of traditional movies where a (usually stuck up) guy sees his life turned a little upside down by a wild woman. It helps that Louise Bourgoin is absolutely stunning. The classic European look you would expect in a Bond Girl. Unfortunately, her acting is not as great as her looks, which makes this Love Triangle of a sort rather inefficient.

Luchini and Zem have slightly more chemistry and the bound they form as protector and protected is potentially interesting but never fully realized. The contrasts between the two (social class, education, outlook on life) still provides for the only interesting bits in the film.

Unfortunately, the film suddenly and unexpectedly slides into very dramatic territory. I do love when a movie elegantly does this but because of lack of character development, it is difficult to buy the turn of events experienced here.

I would be curious to see more of Fontaine's work because I love the general direction and tone this movie was going for, but it failed in the execution. Better casting and more work on the script could have led to a balanced movie that would have been haunting and powerful.

But in its actual state, it just ends up being a forgettable movie because it fails to engage us enough to care about the events unfolding.