L’Homme qui voulait vivre sa vie (2010) - film review

Paul Exben is a successful lawyer who has everything a man could want to be happy, including a beautiful and adoring wife, and two angelic children.  But Paul isn’t happy.  He is uneasy, irritable, suspicious that his wife Sarah might be having an affair with another man.  He is sent over the edge when he learns that Sarah has indeed been cheating on him with a local photographer.  In a moment of madness, Paul unintentionally kills his wife’s lover.  What should he do?  Hand himself over to the authorities and take what is due to him?  No, he has a better idea.  He will steal the dead man’s identity and begin a new life, the life he has always dreamed of...

The central theme of L’homme qui voulait vivre sa vie is a depressingly familiar one.  It is essentially about a man, in his mid to late thirties, who has everything a man could want (including presumably a Gillette razor) and then runs up against a mid-life crisis which soon sends him careering out of control.  This could be the résumé for about a hundred French films made over the past decade but somehow this one stands out from the crowd.  What makes this film so special?.  Well, it is partly the story, an inspired and highly compelling adaptation of Douglas Kennedy’s bestselling novel The Big Picture.  But equally it is the authenticity that actor Romain Duris invests in his portrayal of the main character, supplemented by Eric Lartigau’s slick and perfectly judged direction, that keeps us hooked, right from the unpromising here-we-go-again opening to its slightly far-fetched conclusion.  

L’homme qui voulait vivre sa vie makes a startling contrast with Eric Lartigau’s previous films, three fairly lightweight but enjoyable comedies which include the off-the-wall spoof thriller Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose? (2003) featuring the popular comedy duo Kad Merad and Olivier Baroux.  Lartigau’s fourth film is an altogether more mature and considered film than what went before, not only far darker in tone, but also directed with much more subtlety and restraint.  Instead of bombarding us with puerile sight gags and soulless special effects, Lartigau gently lures us into the troubled inner world of the protagonist and delivers a far more rewarding viewing experience, an unsettling melange of existential thriller and road movie.  The plot may harbour a few troublesome (and unnecessary) contrivances, but once we get past these the scenario is one that we can all engage with, the story of a man who is compelled to reboot his life after arriving at that inescapable mid-life cul-de-sac.   

Kennedy’s well-honed story and Lartigau’s visualisation of it are certainly major plus points, but what most sells the film is the extraordinary central performance from Romain Duris, which is easily among his best.  Duris hasn’t been this good since his acclaimed portrayal in Jacques Audiard’s De battre mon coeur s’est arrêté (2005) and brings precisely the same intensity, humanity and enigmatic charm to this film.  What the screenwriters left out, Duris fills in with his expressive looks and gestures, which somehow reveal far more about his character than his dialogue.  You’d almost think that Douglas Kennedy had Romain Duris in mind when he conceived the character of Ben Bradford (renamed Paul Exben for the film), so perfectly does the actor inhabit the role and make his journey of retreat and renewal so harrowingly believable.  The supporting cast is also pretty impressive (Catherine Deneuve and Niels Arestrup bring a welcome touch of gravitas and class to the proceedings), but this is without doubt Duris’s film and probably the highpoint of his career to date.

© James Travers 2011

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