Errance (2003)

Errance is a French film first released in 2003, directed by Damien Odoul.  The film stars Laetitia Casta, Benoît Magimel, Mattéo Tardito, Yann Goven and Philippe Frécon.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


When his girlfriend Lou bears him a son, Jacques promises to give up his wayward existence of debauchery and petty crime to start a new life.  They move to the South of France, where Jacques finds work as an estate agent whilst Lou takes care of their son.  The idyll lasts only a short time, however.  Within a few years, Jacques has returned to his old ways…

Damien Odoul’s second full-length film after his notable début work, Le Souffle (2001) is a major disappointment and fails in just about every department.  In common with a lot of young filmmakers recently, Odoul appears to be far more preoccupied with cinematic style than in constructing a credible, coherent narrative – to the point of alienating anyone who watches the film.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if Odoul gave us something radically new – some starkly innovative artistic vision or daring use of technique, but he doesn’t.  It all feels horribly second-hand, and the lack of anything approaching a storyline makes the histrionic performances and laboured directorial style almost unbearable.  The whole film looks like a rather half-hearted home video recording – ugly, uneven, badly constructed and rather vacuous.  Laetitia Casta’s performance is at least engaging, the only thing that prevents the film from being totally unwatchable, but her co-star, Benoît Magimel (otherwise a fine actor), constantly looks as if he’d rather be somewhere else.   The thing that really offends, however, is the awful, gut-wrenchingly pretentious ending – which, intended to evoke pangs of sympathy, merely provokes howls of derision.

© James Travers 2007

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