Film REVIEWS
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DRAMA/COMEDY LITTLE WHITE LIES (LES PETITS MOUCHOIRS) (15) 154min ●●●●●
Following the international success of his innocent-man-on- the-run thriller Tell No One, French actor/director Guillaume Canet returns with this sprawling ensemble drama, which concerns a group of friends in their 30s and 40s. One of them, Ludo, has been in a motorcycle accident and is lying in intensive care in a Parisian hospital. His friends decide that they should still go ahead with their annual summer vacation at the seaside house of successful restaurateur Max (François Cluzet). Anxieties, tensions and resentments quickly surface, despite the relaxing environment. Especially since the osteopath Vincent (Benoît Magimel) has confessed his intimate feelings for the highly stressed Max, when both men are married with children. Clearly inspired by The Big Chill, Little White Lies feels overstretched in its two-and-half hour running time, with Canet too reliant at times on montages accompanied by the soundtrack of 1960s and 1970s American classics to drive the narrative. You do, however, believe that these characters are long-term friends, who’ve become used to not being entirely truthful to themselves and to one another. Alongside some enjoyable comic moments – often involving mishaps triggered by Max’s temper – the real strength of this film lies in the performances: among the standouts are those of Magimel, Marion Cotillard (playing the commitment-shy anthropologist Marie), and the real-life oyster fisherman Joel Dupuch as Ludo’s grounded father. (Tom Dawson) ■ GFT, Glasgow from Fri 15–Thu 28 Apr.
THRILLER/ROMANCE FAREWELL (L’AFFAIRE FAREWELL) (12A) 113min ●●●●●
Adapted from Serguei Kostine’s 1997 book Bonjour Farewell: La vérité sur la taupe française du KGB, Christian Joyeux Noël Carion’s true-life espionage thriller is a cut above most. Based loosely on the actions of high ranking KGB official and spy Vladimir
Vetrov, Farewell is a complex but tender portrait of the Cold War in free fall, a place where a passionate eccentric like Vetrov (here renamed Grigoriev) can cause havoc on the information exchange highway. It’s the early 1980s and Grigoriev (Emir Kusterica, excellent) is disillusioned
with the communist system and decides to start passing Soviet secrets to the French government. Grigoriev uses naïve Moscow based French engineer Pierre (Guillaume Canet) as his intermediary. As their friendship slowly grows, the diplomatic hole they are in deepens dramatically and ultimately tragically.
Intelligent, funny and mildly nostalgic for the ‘boy’s own’ espionage of the era, Farewell works because Carion (as both screenwriter and director) allows the master of this kind of thing – John Le Carre – to guide him. Thus the motives here are more personal than political, the home lives of the protagonists are given as much screen time as the political implications of East/West moral equivalence. Farewell is worth saying hello to. (Paul Dale) ■ Selected release from Fri 29 Apr.
ADVENTURE/MYSTERY THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLANC- SEC (LES AVENTURES EXTRAORDINAIRES D’ADELE BLANC-SEC) (12A) 107min ●●●●●
The ‘cinéma du look’ pioneer Luc Besson returns with this old-fashioned adventure-cum-fantasy yarn, adapted from Jacques Tardi’s long-running comic book series. Although set on the eve of World War One, its intrepid titular heroine (wonderfully played by Louise Bourgoin) is a very modern character: a fast- talking, wise-cracking explorer and writer, she’s clearly aware that gender is a matter of performance, judging by the multiple disguises and outfits she breezily adopts and discards.
Adele’s actions are propelled by her desire to find a cure for her comatose sister (Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre): that’s why she lugs a sarcophagus containing a mummified doctor back from Egypt. Meanwhile, a pterodactyl is attacking Paris, and the one scientist, Esperandieu, (Jacky Nercessian) who could control this creature and reanimate Adele’s cargo is in jail.
A polished blend of CGI effects and live-action footage, this handsomely designed film makes effective use of its landmark Parisian locations, which include the Louvre, the Place de la Concorde and the Vincennes zoo. A pity that Adele’s arch-enemy, Dieuleveult, (an unrecognisable Mathieu Amalric) is merely a fleeting presence, yet amidst all the daring escapes from Egyptian burial chambers and awakened mummies, it’s a fateful game of tennis between siblings that lingers in the mind. (Tom Dawson) ■ Selected release from Fri 22 Apr.
31 Mar–28 Apr 2011 THE LIST 65