Friday, July 3, 2009
Movie review: The Girl from Monaco
It's always nice to break up a string of American films with something foreign, if for no other reason than to wipe away the American filmmaking sensibilities. The best foreign films do more than that, transporting the audience to not only a different country, but a different style of cinema. The Girl from Monaco certainly comes with the bona fides, having been nominated for two Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars.
The caveat, however, is that those two nominations were for acting. The two actors honored, Roschdy Zem and Louise Bourgoin, are worthy of such praise, but the film itself is a hodge-podge of genres that never seem to jell into a complete whole. The film jumps right into the plot with no preamble: lawyer Bertrand Beauvois (Fabrice Luchini) is in Monaco defending a woman accused of murder, a high-profile case that calls for him to be assigned a bodyguard for protection from unsavory figures. Strangely, he is not informed of this event, only finding out when Christophe (Zem) appears to be stalking him on the street.
Following an appearance on a local TV show to talk about the trial, Bertrand makes the acquaintance of Audrey (Bourgoin), the local weather girl (not a stretch since Bourgoin is making her feature film debut following three years as a ... weather girl). When she discovers who he is, Audrey latches on to Bertrand, showering him with affection that may or may not be false. Christophe has his own history with Audrey, and tries to warn Bertrand away from her feminine wiles, to no avail.
What follows is a strange amalgam of comedy and drama, with Bertrand trying to concentrate on winning the case for his client and winning the heart of Audrey, with the case seeming to get the raw end of the deal. The situation mirrors that of the film, as writer/director Anne Fontaine is so focused on the affair plotline that she nearly forgets about the trial altogether, only going back to it sporadically. Fontaine tries to have it both ways, though, as she plays up the “drama” of the trial, oblivious to the fact that she's been pushing the comedy of the affair for the majority of the film.
This apparent inattentiveness comes to a head in the last 15 minutes, when the film inexplicably takes a dark turn that's completely at odds with the rest of the film. Despite Betrand and Audrey's affair, it is the relationship between Bertrand and Christophe that dominates the film, and while the final segment certainly pays tribute to that idea, it comes off as forced and unnatural.
This is through no fault of the actors, as Luchini, Zem, and Bourgoin all commit to their roles effectively. Zem plays the sensitive brute to a tee, doling out just the right emotions depending on the scene. Bourgoin could have let her body do the talking in the sexpot role (which it does quite well), but she gives her character one more layer of depth than is expected.
But even the best acting can't save The Girl from Monaco from its storytelling faults, which is a shame, as sticking to one genre or the other could have made for a successful film.
