Kennedy et moi (1999) - film review

At 48, writer Simon Polaris feels he has come to the end of the road.  He cannot work, his adolescent children irritate him, and he hardly cares that his wife has started having an affair with his doctor.  Tired of life, he begins to see a psychiatrist, a strange man who continually clasps a watch in his trouser pocket.  The watch, it transpires, was worn by John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1963.  From that moment, Simon becomes obsessed with the watch and its original owner…

This unusual comedy-drama about a man failing to cope with a mid-life crisis is the first full-length film from actor-director Sam Karmann.  It follows his 1992 short film, Omnibus, which won both the Palme d’or at Cannes and an Oscar.  The film stars Jean-Pierre Bacri, who seems to have made a career of playing depressed middle-aged men, and Nicole Garcia, an actress who has recently begun to make a name for herself as a director.

Kennedy et moi is an engaging film that tackles the subject of depression and ennui with a sense of irony and a nice dollop of political incorrectness.  It’s a thoughtful reflection on modern life, with situations that switch between the realistic and the frankly bizarre.  There have been so many films recently, particularly in French cinema, which explores similar themes, and it’s not clear that this film has much more to say on the subject of mid-life crisis.  However, Karmann’s cinematic style is refreshingly innovative – sombre but oddly not depressing, with some deliciously downbeat comic touches – and Jean-Pierre Bacri’s tragicomic portrayal of a man who is losing his grip on reality certainly makes this a film worth seeing.

© James Travers 2006

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