Au plus près du paradis (2002)

Au plus près du paradis is a French romantic film drama first released in 2002, directed by Tonie Marshall.  The film stars Catherine Deneuve, William Hurt, Bernard Le Coq, Hélène Fillières and Gilbert Melki.  It has also been released under the title: Nearest to Heaven.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


In late middle age, Fanette regrets not having settled down with the ideal partner of her youth, Philippe.  His shadow haunts her present and prevents her from having a long-term relationship with other men.  She sees herself like the heroine in the film An Affair to Remember – she too was kept from her true soul mate, although things turned out all right in the end.  On a trip to America to take photographs for an art book she is working on, Fanette finds herself paired up with Matt, a charming photographer of her own age.  Whilst Philippe remains in her mind, Fanette finds herself drawn to Matt and slowly comes to realise that he is the man she has been waiting for…

After Tonie Marshall’s previous cinematic offering, the witty and incisive Vénus beauté (institut), Au plus près du paradis comes as something of a major disappointment.  An insubstantial romantic melodrama of the worse kind, the film would be embarrassing if packaged as a cheap romantic novel of the kind you find in supermarkets.  Watching such talented actors as Catherine Deneuve and William Hurt struggling to add meaning and substance to this incoherent nonsense is probably the worst kind of cinematic torture you can experience.   What was Tonie Marshall thinking of?

The film gets off to a bad start by showing us a feeble contretemps between Deneuve and Bernard Le Coq (another fine actor who is totally wasted here).  The dialogue is awful but most of it is drowned out by inappropriately dramatic music, evidently as a parody of the movie clip we see in the following scene.  Then, having had our attention diverted to a far better film, a sequence from Leo McCarey’s classic weepy An Affair to Remember, it is impossible to take any of what follows seriously.  It is like watching adorable lemming pups jump over a cliff – in slow motion.  "Oh no," you shout inwardly in numbed disbelief.  "Not another death by cliché!"

Things do not improve when the location switches from France to New York.  The only change is that the same soppy dialogue is now translated into English (or rather very prosaic American English).   Deneuve and Hurt just about look right together but the material they are given lacks the spark to make their on-screen relationship function.  Highways and hotel lobbies are strewn with more cuddly dead lemmings.

The only thing that gives the film any artistic weight is Agnès Godard’s cinematography.  Alas, this is completely wasted on a film such as this which only appears to want to emulate the classic American romantic drama.  Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but it can be offensive if you do it badly.

© James Travers 2004

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