BEFORE: OK, so yesterday's film didn't totally land on the Mother's Day theme, partially because that was also a Christmas movie and a movie about addiction - but I hope you can see that my intention was there. All my messing around, and dropping "Ron's Gone Wrong" in at the last minute pushed this film on to Mother's Day instead, so let's see if that was a happy accident. Lucas Hedges carries over from "Ben Is Back".
THE PLOT: An aging Manhattan socialite living on what's barely left of her inheritance moves to a small apartment in Paris with her son and cat.
AFTER: This is a very strange little film - It feels like I say that all the time, but maybe in the end I just don't say it enough. I could point out that EVERY strange little film is a strange little film, but a lot of times that goes without saying. But this one's really out there, man. SPOILER ALERT, turn back now if you haven't seen this, because things are gonna get weird here.
I can maybe see why this film didn't connect with people, it's about a rich widow and come on, who wants to feel sorry for a rich person these days? When she realizes that she's running out of money, the solution for her is very simple - sell off the artworks and the townhouse and move to Paris. Of course, why doesn't everybody just DO that when they're behind on their bills? Oh, right. But Frances DID have a financial plan here, it's just that her plan was to die before the money ran out, then her mistake was to keep on living. It's an all too common one, unfortunately. That's why MY financial plan, to live forever, makes a lot more sense. If I never stop working, then I'll never need to retire, and then I won't die.
But let's get back to Frances, who then gets on a boat to Paris with her son and cat - you're not supposed to just take your pets with you to another country, I know, there are quarantine rules and concerns over various animal diseases, but those rules are for the common people, rich folk are above all that. But the boat scenes make it very difficult to tell when this film is supposed to take place, it could be set in the current day, or it could be set back in the 1980's, it's difficult to say because there's a timeless quality to it, nothing to anchor the film to our decade, really. But the ocean liner (or the studio sets taking place there) present a conundrum, the dining rooms and ballrooms look very modern, but the deck chairs and life preservers look like they're from the 1930's, so I'm even more confused. Then when we get to Paris, same problem, because parts of the city of Paris have an eternal, timeless look - so again, this could be taking place in 2020, or really, any time in the previous 50 years. The fashions, the luggage, it's all really hard to say WHEN this all is happening, assuming it's all not some dream and it is all supposed to be happening.
On the boat, Frances and her son meet a medium, Madeleine the medium - because outside the very modern ship casino is a fortune-telling booth that looks like it's from the 1950's, or from some Woody Allen movie like "Magic in the Moonlight" or "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger". Madeleine makes the mistake of telling an elderly passenger she's about to die, which leads to her dismissal (honestly, I don't think any cruise line ever hires psychics or fortune tellers, anyway) and this leads to Malcolm, Frances' son, to learn that on the average cruise ship crossing the Atlantic, on average, two passengers die each day while at sea. Perhaps this makes sense given the advanced age of most cruise-goers, but still, I'd like to see the proof of this as a statistic. Still, the big ocean liners DO have morgues, they probably just don't want you to know about that.
When they arrive in Paris, Frances and Malcolm set themselves up in Joan's apartment, there's more space than they could possibly need, but we learn that their money is still limited, and it's a dwindling supply if they're going to maintain the lifestyle they've become accustomed to. It seems that Frances' financial plan is back in action, she keeps referring to vague plans to kill herself in glorious fashion. They celebrate Christmas, Frances buys her son a bicycle, and then their cat runs away for some reason, and Frances simply MUST get him back - because, as we learn, within the cat is the spirit of her dead husband, and she really wants to kill the cat and make sure he suffers, or something along those lines. It's pretty unclear, but to find the cat they MUST locate Madeleine the medium, and to find Madeleine, they MUST hire a private detective. Umm, sure, that makes perfect sense, I think.
With the medium's help, they can communicate with the spirit of Frances' dead husband and Malcolm's errant father, and she manages to come to some kind of settlement or resolution with him. They never find the cat, but I guess that's OK, because they can talk to the spirit within the cat thanks to the magic of movie voice-over dubbing. But by this point the large French apartment is filled up with people staying over, like the medium and the detective and Madame Reynard, and I couldn't even figure out how she came into the story, I guess she's an old friend who lives in Paris, too? Then OF COURSE Joan shows up and wants to know who all these people living in her apartment are. Then OF COURSE Malcolm's old girlfriend shows up with her new fiancé, and everybody sleeps over and maybe finds an new partner to shack up with, and next thing you know, our little black comedy has turned into something like a classic bedroom farce, late in the game.
There are pairings and little love triangles and Malcolm maybe wins his old girlfriend back, and Frances seems to be sharing a bed with Joan, the married woman who owns the apartment. It's a bit tough to say if they're just two old friends sharing a bed, or if something more is taking place, the film is annoyingly vague on this point. Not that there's anything wrong with a lesbian relationship in your golden years, especially if keeps those suicidal thoughts at bay, and it gives you something to live for. But then there's no reason to sneak around and conceal it, is there? It's a small apartment and everybody living there is going to find out, anyway.
By the way, a "French exit" is a slang term for leaving without warning, like one might leave a party without saying goodbye to the host. Weirdly, in France they have a similar term, "filer a l'anglaise" but it means "to leave English style". It comes from the military concept of leaving one's post, but I've also heard it in reference to sneaking out of someone's apartment in the morning after sex, I guess to be followed by the "walk of shame". Symbolically, I suppose it could also refer here to dying, or committing suicide without leaving a note?
Also starring Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil"), Valerie Mahaffey (last seen in "Sully"), Susan Coyne, Imogen Poots (last seen in "Filth"), Danielle Macdonald (last seen in "Trust Me"), Isaach de Bankolé (last seen in "The Limits of Control"), Daniel Di Tomasso, Eddie Holland, Matt Holland, Christine Lan, Robert Higden (last seen in "Mother!"), Larry Day, Christopher B. MacCabe, Vlasta Vrana (last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Younes Bouab (last seen in "Queen of the Desert") and the voice of Tracy Letts (last seen in "The Woman in the Window").
RATING: 4 out of 10 unattentive Parisian waiters
No comments:
Post a Comment