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Pretty Good

Admirable film.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

"La Mer A Boire " is a desperate depressing movie;an user did not like the last minutes :but in that context it made sense .It compares favorably with one of Claude Chabrol's most impressive conclusion:that of 'Que La Bete Meure" (1969);the victim may be innocent ,but he is part of the selfish wealthy people: " a handy craftsman but a poor chap!" .This sentence offends the hero but also the audience who saw that man set fire to himself in an unexpected (and all the more impressive) scene.Much to the credit of the movie is the destruction of a cliché:the greedy boss .Daniel Auteuil (in a thankless part) is a generous man ,who suffers as much as his workers on his shipyard ,who shares with them his small victories and his big defeats :no demagogy ,no paternalism,no condescension;He goes for broke ,trying to get capital from the Russians and even to sell his desirable mansion.He has to fight against the ruthless bankers and a rival who wants to take over his company ;in this world ,the human factor has no meaning .His best friend (Marc Chapiteau)was not able to carry on the fight ."La Mer A Boire" was not a commercial success:almost a documentary in its first part,it makes no concessions (the love story between the two young workers is abandoned in midstream),but it is a must for lovers of the French cinema with strong hearts NB:Maud Wyler,who is also a stage actress,is not a relative of the great American director.

There is much to recommend in this movie, which I saw in Paimpol last week. Daniel Auteuil does his usual fine job of acting. There are actual 3-dimensional characters, rather than 2-D stereotypes. The movie touches on a lot of important issues in this recession: how you handle employees you are forced to fire if you actually have a soul, how you deal with a banker half your age who only sees numbers and not human lives when it comes to dealing with a financial problem, how you maintain a reputation for quality when the market favors fast and cheap, etc. But the end of this movie is so poorly prepared! There were only about 10 people in the Cinema Breiz when I saw it, and we all walked out complaining about the end.So yes, this is a film worth seeing. But be prepared not to like the last 5 minutes - at all.

A really great film, and very surprisingly sad. The tale of a big head executive in a yachting boats factory who faces major financial problems, and who is forced to fire half of his staff. Daniel Auteuil is absolutely terrific in the lead character. A man who decides to fight with all his strenght, a very desperate man, for a lost struggle. The evil boss vs the good hard labor workers - and wildcat strikers - is avoided in this film. Although we can feel empathy for the poor fired employees. Some subplots are strangely shown at the beginning of the story and abandoned, such as the relationship between the two young employees - a young man and his colleague. This subplots leads nowhere but a dead end, you don't know why. A mystery for me. But I like this. I find this offbeat, unusual. Yes, Auteuil is very powerful here. But I repeat, don't watch this film is you are yourself depressed. Because if you have a handful of sleeping pills near you...