I Want to Go Home (1989)

I Want to Go Home is a French film comedy-drama first released in 1989, directed by Alain Resnais.  The film stars Adolph Green, Laura Benson, Linda Lavin, Gérard Depardieu and Micheline Presle.  It has also been released under the title: Je veux rentrer à la maison.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


An ageing American cartoonists, Joey Wellman, makes a visit to Paris to attend an exhibition of his work.  He plans to meet up with his daughter, Elsie, who is studying at the Sorbonne, but she has little respect for her father and fails to keep the rendez-vous.  By chance, Wellman meets and is befriended by a celebrated academic, Christian Gauthier, an admirer of his work and, ironically, the man whom Welmman’s daughter has desperately been trying to meet for the past few months.  Although he is feeling increasingly uneasy with French culture, Wellman reluctantly agrees to accept an invitation to spend the weekend with Gauthier and his entourage…

Although pretty mundane when compared with Resnais’ earlier cinematographic achievements, this is nonetheless an entertaining satire, having the quality of characterisation and narrative structure we have come to expect of this master of French cinema.

Resnais’s motivation for making this film is his own life-long interest in strip cartoons, a hobby which has far more legitimacy amongst adults in France than probably anywhere else in the world.  The main characters in the film are initially presented as almost comic-book creations who evolve into fully blooded human beings as the origins for their extreme behaviour is gradually unveiled.  The best instance of this is the central character, Wellman, who appears at first to be the archetypal loud-mouthed American whose first day in Paris is his worst nightmare come true.

Wellman, brilliantly played by Adolph Green (the celebrated writer of the Hollywood classic Singin’ in the Rain), appears to undergo a major transformation in the course of his trip to France.  However, what changes most is our interpretation of Wellman, how we ourselves see the peculiar little man.  This is, if anything, a film about the folly of prejudice and preconceived notions of what is worthy of merit.  Bugs Bunny and Madame Bovary are both, in their own way, works of genius.

The film is a little marred by some unnecessary comic ideas which appear rather silly and weaken the drama considerably – for instance the lame jealous boyfriend sequence culminating in an awful bedroom brawl.  Also, some would lampoon Resnais’ curious decision to use a cartoon figure (the increasingly irritating Sallycat) to act as the conscience of the film’s main protagonists.

However, the film’s greatest source of irritation is its constant flipping between French and English, which results in the film appearing poorly dubbed, whether viewed in its French or English version.

However, for all its noticeable weaknesses, the film does have some extremely funny moments which, for some spectators at least, should  just about make up for these negative aspects.

© James Travers 2001


From our childhood, we Americans are encouraged to identify with endless cartoon characters which, as our internal objects (sitting in our subconscious, defining our reactions and having become a part of who we are), influence our behavior even when we have grown up.  Alain Resnais’ film shows us ourselves when we as adults are in a permanent (direct or silent) dialogue with cartoon personages and how this fact cripples our adulthood by making us unable to handle the challenges of the real world.

Resnais analyzes how relations between US and Europe today have become an exchange of an American cartoon worldview, with attempts by some French scholars to assimilate it by seeking a fake intellectual elaboration.
We see how American globalisation in cartoon books is fusing with French intellectual sophistication, to the cultural detriment of both sides.

The film is funny, but our desire to have fun is defined by  the film’s images as phoney, and our laughter debunks itself - it becomes impregnated with shame and pain.  I want to go home is an incredible intellectual and artistic achievement. I am not sure that we deserve it.  Nobody expected from Adolph Green, a famous Hollywood composer, such a brilliant acting performance, one that made him an equal partner to Gérard Depardieu.  To read the complete article on Cultural Apocalypse by Means of Comedy visit: www.actingoutpolitics.com

© Victor (Seattle, USA) 2010

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