L’Âge de raison (2010) - film review

On her 40th birthday, Margaret, a successful businesswoman, receives a letter - from herself.  She wrote the letter when she was seven years old, to remind her of what she hoped to become when she was a little girl...

Yann Samuell’s latest directorial offering has much in common with his debut feature Jeux d’enfants (2003).  Both revolve around a nonsensical plot device in which the grown-up protagonists are emotionally linked to their childhood counterparts and both feel like a clumsy attempt to emulate the style of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2002).  L’Âge de raison has just a tad more substance to it than Jeux d’enfants but is just as frustratingly Hell-bent on deluging its audience in twee whimsy.  The premise (an adult suddenly realising he or she has betrayed his childhood ideals) has considerable promise but this is pretty well squandered in pursuit of what is really no more than a piece of childish pantomime.

Sophie Marceau and Michel Duchaussoy bring at least a patina of respectability to the proceedings, the former being particularly amusing in a role that is a near-send-up of the 1980s-style executive super-bitch.  Unfortunately both actors are ill-served by a script that is little more than an accumulation of dated clichés.  Indeed much of the charm and humour in this film appears to have got there entirely by accident.  The scripted jokes generally have less chance of provoking a laugh than an outbreak of bubonic plague.  L’Âge de raison just about passes muster as good mindless fun but don’t expect too much.

© filmsdefrance.com 2010

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