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An Exercise In Nonsense

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a small-budget movie, produced and directed in France. It stands out from other conventional "feel-good" movies, by its personal touch. It seems that Ms Belhomme was involved in all stages of the movie, from writing to directing. It's actually hard to know what category it falls into, as it is neither a "film d'auteur", neither a big-budget film.What I really enjoyed is the film's simplicity. The main actress, Isabelle Carré, is a pleasure to watch, like a cross between Woody Allen and that French comedian, Pierre Richard.. Slowly but surely, I began to be drawn into Perrine's life and inner conflicts, as she hesitates at (SPOILER) stealing the victim's job and taking custody of his son.In a sense the films is a modern-day fairy-tale, a kind of reversed Sleeping Beauty. Although, I didn't laugh all the way through, there were several hilarious moments, such as the Bear scene near the end.I saw the movie in France, so I don't know it was released in the US. But if you like unpretentious, intelligent, cinema. I would say this one is for you.

Women directors make more and more their presence felt in the French cinema ;Some of their works are highly commendable ("Gemma Bovary" "Par Accident" )and would make their pioneer ,Jacqueline Audry ,proud,some fall into the dreadful "feel good" zeitgeist which begins to mar the French scene: so does the dreaded "Echappée belle" ,and so does ,to a lesser degree, " the musical chairs" The beginning promises good things (read the screenplay on the IMDb page);unfortunately promises remain on hold.This is a spate of clichés ,in a rosy world where everybody's nice and everybody's beautiful.........except for the unfortunate wounded man's fiancée ,but do not worry ,Perrine will see to it.As soon as she plays the violin in the hospital for her "victim" in a coma ,everything is predictable ,from the "empty" hospital room scene to the brat and the dog ,from the would be old-fashioned songs (a hundred times better than the ditty the heroine "sings" for her "audition" ) to the "unexpected " mistaken identities of the last sequences .Even the "Darth Vader" act is not funny .A very unpleasant line in the dialog :"Seznek ah ,the murderer!" ;it has yet to be proved that Guillaume Seznek was really guilty.