Just the Two of Us

Somehow I got the impression Valerie Donzelli, whom I like as an actress, is a competent director; looking back I have only seen her _Declaration of War_, which left little impression. Her new directorial effort _Just the Two of Us_ is truly dreadful from the first minute to the last. It starts out with rapid close-ups of different characters, in TV-editing style, before we have even figured out who they are. It doesn't help that Virginie Efira plays two of them (for a while I was convince one is the fractured alter ego of the other!), and every five seconds Donzelli switches color filter. It makes your head explode. Efira is always fascinating to watch, but she is arguably not a versatile enough actress to bring life to both roles with only a change of haircut. Or perhaps it is the director's fault, giving her other character no screen time?

The domestic abuse theme is tepid. It doesn't help that I just finished watching another Efira film (_An Impossible Love_) in which her character is much more sympathetic, and even more of a domestic abuse doormat. That film by Catherine Corsini is no cinematic masterpiece either, but at least it isn't visually assaultive. The screenplay of _Just the Two of Us_ features cringe-inducing voiceover too; astonishingly, it won a Cesar best screenplay prize!

The only saving grace is the appearance by actresses I haven't seen in a while: Marie Riviere as Efira's character's mother, and Laurence Cote who used to be in films by Rivette (although I barely recognize her).

Watching these two films by female French directors -- one bland, the other like a poke in the eye -- makes me wonder why French and American critics hate Melanie Laurent so much. Laurent is a hundred times better than these two put together. I suppose that is her one unforgivable sin -- making the critics' darlings and festival inner circle crowd such as Donzelli, Corsini, Maiwenn, and the truly dreadful Mia Hansen-Love look like amateurs.