BEFORE: Yesterday was extremely rainy in NYC, and I took a fall as I rounded the corner on Sixth Ave., with my Monday morning bagel and coffee in one hand, and the umbrella in the other. There was a wet cardboard box on the ground that was slicker than an ice patch, and my left foot slipped right off of it, forcing me down to land hard on my knees. I leaned over forward and had to let go of my umbrella but managed to keep my breakfast from landing on the sidewalk. Someone grabbed my errant umbrella before it could get too far, and another guy rushed over to help, but was shocked and said, "Hey, you didn't even spill your coffee!" I couldn't tell if he was impressed or disappointed. But today my knees and shins are really hurting, because that's how I landed - I'm honestly pretty good at falling down and not getting hurt. I can endure the pain, because hey, it could be worse - I could have lost both my lower legs in a killer whale show at French Marineland, and I didn't.
I suppose this would be a great time to watch "La Vie en Rose", the biopic about Edith Piaf starring Marion Cotillard, but I don't have a copy, and I'm just not interested enough to seek it out. Then again, she did win a Best Actress Oscar for that film. But I've got my schedule to maintain, and it's already going to be tricky to make it to Mothers Day in time, given that I'm going on a small trip next week
THE PLOT: A British investment broker inherits his uncle's chateau and vineyard in Provence, where he spent much of his childhood. He discovers a new laid-back lifestyle as he tries to renovate the estate to be sold.
AFTER: I sort of don't know what to do with this film, because it spent its first half trying hard to be a comedy, and failing miserably at that. Then it sort of shifts gears trying to be a romance, and is at least moderately successful at that. The whole thing's supposed to act as a kind of redemption story for this stock market guy, who's an asshole and proud of it, but who's to say that being a vineyard owner later on is any better? A good vineyard owner is also a good businessman, so who's to say that they can't also be assholes? Does it take a ruthless jerk to properly run a business, and if not, what's different about the wine-making business? Is it because of the scenery, or the company, or is it all that wine that they're drinking? Perhaps more research is required.
It would be helpful if this film could just focus for a minute, or let me know when it's finally in the mood to getting around to making some kind of point. But it just sort of ambles, and flashes back almost randomly to when the main character was a boy, and he spent time with his uncle, who owned the vineyard. This in itself is a bit confusing, because we're told that Max Skinner's parents have both died in an accident, but he only spends summers living with his uncle. Where does the boy live the rest of the time? This is one of many things that are unclear. And I realize that things are different in Europe, but should a young boy be drinking so much wine? I guess I can see how his uncle could be giving him an appreciation for the finer things, but still...the kid's how old? 12? 13?
25 years later, the uncle dies and Max is informed that he's inherited his uncle's estate, so he goes there, shortly after one of his trademark "manipulations" of the market - pretending to buy to raise some stock's price, then selling off at the high point, which causes the shares to plummet, then he buys the stock AGAIN when it hits the low point. Umm, what's wrong with "buy low, sell high", I thought that was every investor's plan? Apparently Max did something shady to make the stock high before he sold and then low before he bought, but the film never explains what, exactly, he did, or why it was illegal. Probably because some screenwriter doesn't understand trading - you know, he did "business stuff" and manipulated the market, which is probably wrong-ish. Umm, sure, let's go with that.
Once he's in Provence, unfunny slapstick ensues as Max has problems with his GPS and drives around the parking lot in circles before he can get on the road - because apparently he's only a genius when it comes to the stock market. More unfunny events as he nearly runs a bicycling woman off the road while he's fumbling with his phone. Because accidents caused by driving while texting are hilarious, right? Then while surveying his new property, he falls into an empty swimming pool and can't climb out, no matter what he tries - which is also not funny. What are the odds that the woman who can help him climb out would be the SAME woman he almost hit with his car? Well, pretty good, it turns out, and her solution is to fill the pool with water (which somehow she knows how to do...) and soak Max in the process. OK, this is a little bit funny because he totally deserves it.
But what are the odds that he'd fall for this woman, later on in the film. Again, pretty good if you know the rules of movie-making. She owns the café in town, and wouldn't you know it, has a local reputation for being not only beautiful, but hard to romance. Oh, if only some vineyard owner who's really a ruthless businessman owed her an apology, and could make some grand romantic gesture to win her heart! But, come on, what are the chances of THAT happening? Oh, yeah, right.
While waiting out his suspension for his trading shenanigans, Max has time to clean up the villa and vineyards, and get it ready to be sold - and what a coincidence, his best friend is a real estate broker who thinks they can get millions for the property - which is strange because every indication we have about the wine is that it's quite terrible. Max describes it as "headache-inducing" and claims that it only makes people angry, not happy. Then why does he keep drinking the stuff? This is another thing that is very unclear.
I have a long list of other unanswered questions, too - why are there so many scorpions in the vineyard? Why does the caretaker's wife say "Lavender!" whenever someone gets scared by a scorpion? Does lavender attract the scorpions, or repel them? Why is there one wine that the vineyard makes (Le Coin Perdu) that's actually good? What does it mean when they say that wine was made from "illegal vines"? Does anybody want to maybe help out the audience members that may not understand the finer points of making wine?
Before too long, a woman shows up at the vineyard, claiming to be Max's uncle's daughter, aka his cousin. (But he apparently wants to sleep with her, too, I guess just in case things don't work out with the café owner? Another thing that was quite unclear.) She has the unfortunate timing of seeking out her father shortly after his death, but that by itself doesn't mean that she's only there to collect her inheritance, or that she's pulling some kind of scam. But since she just HAPPENS to be from Napa Valley and knows a lot about winemaking, naturally that's where Max's shady business mind takes him.
You'd think that if his childhood memories of living on the vineyard with his uncle were so great, that he'd be eager to keep the property, move to France and become an itinerant winemaker, following in his uncle's footsteps. And you'd be right, it just takes way too long for Max to realize that's what he wants to do. His company's odd solution to reinstating him after his suspension is to offer him either a discharge with a large settlement, or a partnership with an even larger income. What? This makes no sense, is he being punished for his shady trading techniques, or rewarded? Since when does getting in trouble for manipulating the market get you promoted, or do I just not understand how business works? (Or, as I suspect, neither does the screenwriter...)
Anyway, it's nearly too late to take the settlement and go back to the vineyard, because his broker already sold it - but never fear, another shady business deal gets it back in the hands of his cousin, because this guy never met a business deal he couldn't manipulate with a bunch of lies. But, then, doesn't this prove that he didn't learn ANYTHING from his time in Provence? Once a cheater, always a cheater. It's a very murky moral message here, but then, there are many many things in this storyline that are very cloudy, like, say, an unfiltered wine.
In the end, I don't know enough about wine-making to call any NITPICK POINTS here, but I'm sure they exist. Like, if the director wanted THAT party to own the vineyard in the end, there were much, much simpler ways of making that happen, why jump through all these other hoops to get there? There's so much strange bending-over-backwards in the plot to make the ending happen just so.
EDIT: I checked the plot of the novel "A Good Year" on Wikipedia, and it is quite different. It seems the book is a lot clearer about many things, including why there are two different wines coming from the same estate, and how that is happening, and how one is better than the other. It's also clearer from the book's plot who hired the wine expert to give the vineyard a bad assessment, and why, and what "illegal vines" are. Also, the inheritance of the vineyard is a lot cleaner in the book - it ends up in the same hands as the film, but in a way that makes more sense, from a legal angle. But it seems this noted director couldn't be bothered to explain any of this, and he decided to go his own way with the plot of the film. And then when it came to filling in the gaps about how market trading or running a vineyard work, he just decided to make stuff up, in lieu of doing any research at all. What a shame.
Also starring Russell Crowe (last seen in "War Machine"), Albert Finney (last seen in "Two for the Road"), Abbie Cornish (last seen in "Robocop" (2014)), Didier Bourdon, Isabelle Candelier, Freddie Highmore (last seen in "Finding Neverland"), Tom Hollander (last seen in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation"), Rafe Spall (last seen in "The BFG"), Richard Coyle, Archie Panjabi (last seen in "A Mighty Heart"), Kenneth Cranham (last seen in "Layer Cake"), Daniel Mays (last seen in "Atonement"), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Giannina Facio.
RATING: 4 out of 10 tennis rackets
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