Angel & Tony

It is one of films who you feel it.

First, grace to cinematography, the sea, the salted air, the wind, the smell of fish.

Second - the vulnerability and tries to integrate herself in new family of Angela. And not only her.

Not the last, the family spirit.

And you touch the paper flowers.

A film great for simplicity and honesty, for the flavors of Normandy and for admirable Clotilde Hesme.

My Filipino friend picks up the French movies, well nearly all the times French. Most of the time,including the four of us, we are only a dozen of people in the cinema. And now the time is right for the movie to start - here it comes, slow, with some unusual beauty, bestial beauty? It's too early to know - the main character seems aloof, troubled and things are a little strange, the story goes on still fairly slow...Is something going to happen? But soon our patience gets rewarded, this slow introduction starts to reveal the why and how. People interact, cautiously. I did get on the French news, here down under, that fishing as a profession suffered hardship with European quota imposition and I understand what is happening to this small community. It's nice to have some insight in what is going on, else it could be perceived as fabricated. But really here little is fabricated just narrated in a beautiful way in a beautiful but very real setting, yes with perhaps unlikely events but not impossible. What'll become of Angele and Tony? Well just like me you'll need to sit through to find out the right way, that is do not start with the last page or here reading comments with spoilers. That's right it would spoil it!

Having been a journalist and a documentary maker before turning to fiction, it is hardly surprising to find that Alix Delaporte has a talent for capturing reality. In "Angèle et Tony", the time is now and it shows: Angèle, Tony, their family and friends are indeed people that you could meet down the street, at the baker's or at your local café. Likewise, the place, a small fishing harbor in Normandy, is anything but artificial. Shot entirely on location in Port-en-Bessin (a small town by the sea which was already the setting of Marcel Carné's "La Marie du Port"in 1949 and of Zanuck's "The Longest Day" in 1962), the film gives you the feeling you have always lived there, all that lacks being the spray of the sea and the smell of fish! Socially speaking, "Angèle et Tony" is grounded in reality as well. The hardships of being among the last fishermen in France and the struggle to survive as such are aspects that are examined seriously, albeit briefly, through descriptions, conversations and tense confrontation with the police. Last but not least, the relationships between the characters ring true: Angèle, Tony, Tony's mother, face and confront each other using ordinary everyday words, in close connection with their immediate environment.

On the other hand, Alix Delaporte does not mistake realism for naturalism, which is a good point. Sure, Angèle has a troubled past but the writer-director does not dwell on it. Agreed, a fisherman's life is no life of roses, but Alix Delaporte shows them taking action not moaning about their lot. Granted, the relationships between Angèle and Tony are difficult but this is not the point. The real point is to show how these strangers, who have apparently nothing in common, will open to each other and try to exist as a couple, becoming better human beings in the process.

Such a positive dynamic makes "Angèle et Tony", a potentially depressing drama, a pleasant movie, both instructive and entertaining.

The leading couple is a sure-handed choice and contributes to the success of Alix Delaporte's first fictional effort. Clotilde Hesme constantly finds the right note, managing to combine stubborn aggressiveness and touching frailty. And Gregory Gadebois turns in an interesting performance as a life-like fisherman, withdrawn and brooding, but hiding romantic feelings behind this facade. His restrained acting style is so natural that you would never think he is a member of the Comédie-Française.

All in all a good film, but which could have been even better had the director avoided a few lengthy passages, in particular when it comes to Angèle riding her bike. Why spend so much film time on scenes that do not bring much to the whole thing (Okay Angèle zigzags, a metaphor of her wayward ways, but she does it too often and too long : five seconds are enough to get the point!) while there are more interesting aspects which would benefit from a more in-depth approach? However this is only a minor defect and it should not deter you from spending an hour and a half in the company of Angèle and Tony.

I was hoping this film would be good and I wasn't at all disappointed. It was lovely.

I saw Clotilde Hesme in Le fils de l'épicier, another little charmer. Her smile lit up the screen in that one, and it does the same in this one. She's an excellent actress. The acting is all good, actually.

The story is simple, and predictable enough if you want to predict things, but it's very nicely told, with delightful understatement and restraint. The film is beautifully photographed, again with great restraint, so that the beauty of the northern sea and sky and the pale and subtle colours of the landscape are allowed to emerge and speak for themselves.

The film doesn't pretend to be anything more than a simple romance. It certainly doesn't pretend to be great. But it is in fact very good.

The Director is too obsessed with her theme of hard-done-by/unfortunate young woman, and the pathos of her aggrieved face, even when her struggle is only with pedalling a bicycle uphill-—(overlong shots of this), as emblematic of her hardship!

The first shot in the film: Angèle engaged in a certain "activity" up against a wall, with a young man who gives her a Chinese Action Man, after pulling up his jeans, and is never seen again. She appears as a sullen tart, whose unsavoury past is only later hinted at by fragments of information. She is authorised to leave a Young Offenders' hostel when she tells the officer she has got herself a job (helping Tony, the charitable fisherman whose mother is recently widowed).

Her entirely graceless, furtive behaviour is further displayed when we find she has just stolen a bicycle; then she tries to steal a smart dress from a shop, and maintains she has to go and collect her son. This proves to be a charming 10 year old who has naturally become distanced while she was in prison, and she is fearful/embarrassed about confronting him. Apart from a violent demo by fishermen v. police, everyone is obliging: Angèle remains sullen and aggrieved.

In spite of all, there is a happy ending! (She marries Tony, the boy is a page, ex-in-laws are reconciled.)

The Interviews with star and director prove a further disappointment: trying to reply, haltingly, in English, to very banal questions is a daunting task; it only reveals their mutual satisfaction, as if the theme and the beautiful face were sufficient to carry the story through. (275 words)