J’me sens pas belle (2004)

J’me sens pas belle is a French comedy romance film first released in 2004, directed by Bernard Jeanjean.  The film stars Marina Foïs, Julien Boisselier, Isabelle Nanty and Didier Bénureau.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Fanny, 30 and single, has decided it is high time she hooked a man.  Having selected her victim, a colleague named Paul, she invites him to dinner.  Little does he know what she has in mind once the dinner plates have been cleared away.  Everything starts out as planned.  Paul arrives at the appointed hour.  Light music and dimmed lights create just the right ambiance for a romantic evening.  Fanny has caught her man, and he has absolutely no chance of slipping through her clutches...

This is precisely the kind of film that illuminates the difference - far more gap than gulf - between my French friends who are also film buffs and myself.   The average English film fan will never get to see a ’domestic’ movie like this unless he has the time, inclination, ease of access and wherewithal to visit Paris regularly (as I do) and gorge on the salles and FNAC.  Living in a London starved of French films - in a good year we may see 20 out of the three hundred or so produced annually - I tend to derive more enjoyment from - and praise accordingly - the kind of domestic film that still remains something of a treat for me whilst my jaded French friends can see the equivalent at least 40 weeks a year in the salles and roughly once a week on TV.  So six years ago, I was delighted to see this charmer on its initial release.  

Despite a wealth of experience and professionalism, the stars of this two-hander, Marina Foïs and Julien Boissellier, are virtually unknown here in the UK.  With the notable exception of the wonderful Clara et Moi (which received only a couple of screenings), Boissellier has usually been peripheral in the films seen in the UK, e.g. Female Agents and Don’t Worry, I’m Okay.  The plot of J’me sens pas belle is wafer-thin and, as with any two-hander, the acting needs to be exceptional to keep us watching.  No problem.  Foïs and Boissellier can hold their own with anyone working today.  

Foïs plays a thirty-something (both actors are the same age and were 34 at the time of shooting) who’s had just about one one-night-stand too many and is looking for something a little more permanent.  With this is mind, she invites colleague Boissellier to dinner at her flat with seduction to follow, although he is only hip to the first course.  The feel-good factor kicks in from the first with Foïs’ preparations which include secreting a condom where it will do the most good at the optimum moment, stretching a second until it escapes her fingers and lodges in a guitar, and more on the same lines.  Another fine actress, Isabelle Nanty, provides an off-screen voice to good effect.  In short - and it is short by today’s blockbuster standards - this is a delightful film which I am happy to own on DVD and return to now and again.

© Leon Nock (London, England) 2010 

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