Joseph et la fille (2010) - film review

Having completed a twenty year stretch in prison, Joseph immediately sets about preparing the ultimate hold-up.  But he needs an accomplice if the robbery is to succeed.  Unable to trust anyone, he decides to initiate 20-year-old Julie in his crime...

Xavier De Choudens’s follow-up to his promising debut feature Frères (2004) is a somewhat lesser affair which attempts, a little too self-consciously, to combine melodrama and noir-style caper movie, the result being a somewhat stilted hybrid that is lacking both in charm and momentum.  The fault lies less in the direction and acting, which are adequate (but by no means excellent), and more in the screenwriting, which relies too heavily on out-dated clichés and struggles to get beyond the merely superficial.  De Choudens fails spectacularly to get the best out of his lead performers, who look so bored with their roles that you can’t help wishing that some kind soul would put them out of their misery.  Hafsia Herzi, so engaging in Abdel Kechiche’s La Graine et le mulet (2007), jars constantly throughout the film and fails to make her character more than a tiresome caricature, whilst Jacques Dutronc merely looks as if he is trying to fight his way out of a drunken stupor.  The film grinds to shuddering halt even before it reaches its midpoint, but those who stay through to the bitter end are rewarded with an ending so crass and predictable that you just want to gnaw your arms and legs off in despair.

© filmsdefrance.com 2011

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