La Délicatesse (2011) - film review

Nathalie has everything she could want to be happy.  She is young, beautiful and is enjoying the perfect romance.  When her husband is suddenly taken from her in a tragic accident, Nathalie’s life suddenly falls apart.  She gets through her present crisis by committing herself to her work.  With her love life on the back burner, she could not be a more dedicated employee.  Then, some years after the fateful day she lost her husband, she is taken by the sudden urge to kiss one of her colleagues, Markus.  Whilst they may not seem to be the most obvious of soul mates, Nathalie and Markus are soon carried away on a tidal wave of emotion...

David Foenkinos’s 2011 novel La Délicatesse had yet to reach the printing presses before its author had embarked on its film adaptation, making his directing debut in partnership with his brother Stéphane, an established television writer and casting director.  In adapting his novel, David Foenkinos was determined to remain as faithful to it as possible, which might account for some of the film’s obvious shortcomings - an over-reliance on cinematic clichés (you’d think there would be a prize for anyone who can spot all the references to Truffaut’s films), an over-reliance on voice-over-narration (to preserve the stream of consciousness aspect of the novel) and a failure to bring any substance to what is, let’s be honest, a rather wishy-washy love story with as much backbone as a jellyfish embarking on a career in politics.  In both the screenwriting and direction, it isn’t so much a case of delicacy as wilful laziness.

Fortunately the film has one saving grace - the totally inspired casting of Audrey Tautou and François Damiens, an improbable match that proves to be a more than adequate palliative for any third rate dross.  Tautou still appears to be living in the shadow of the role that brought her fame, Amélie Poulain, and the character she portrays in La Délicatesse is Amélie in all but name, if not a slightly older, slightly more jaundiced cousin of hers.  Once again Tautou has absurdly fanciful notions about love, lives an idyllic romance (which of course ends in disaster) and finally falls for the king of the geeks, in the frumpish shape of Belgian actor François Damiens.  Whilst the on-screen chemistry between Tautou and Damiens is virtually non-existent (this may have been a deliberate post-modern ploy), both actors work well together and make an effective team as they set about salvaging as many still-born comedy situations as they can.  Damiens recently distinguished himself in the offbeat comedy-drama La Famille Wolberg (2009); La Délicatesse shows that he is not only a very capable actor, but also that he has a natural flair for comedy - French film aficionados can expect to see a lot more of him in the years to come.

As enjoyable as the Tautou-Damiens pairing is, watching them trying to rescue this film is a pretty uncomfortable experience, a bit like watching a small gang of one-legged toddlers frantically struggling to save a beached whale.  By the time they begin to show some muscle more than half of the film’s runtime has elapsed and it’s an uphill job keeping the comedy juggernaut afloat (metaphors, like cocktails, are made to be mixed).   Of course, we all know that balding middle-aged men with flat feet and an addiction to beige pullovers are an irresistible magnet for any sweet, perfectly formed young career woman, and so the whirlwind coupling of a button-eyed beauty and a balding beige beast stretches credibility not one iota.  The only problem is that the Foenkinos brothers appear unwilling or unable to develop the idea of the mismatched couple beyond the merely superficial and so it is hard to engage with either character and even harder to take their relationship seriously.  Once they have cobbled together the basic premise and banked all the obvious jokes, the directors appear too content to just sit back and let the film follow its predictable, not entirely satisfying course.  An opportunity to explore the less familiar, more delicate, facets of love is carelessly squandered and the end-result, whilst aimiable and mildly entertaining, is thin and saccharine, a rather limp juvenile fantasy that is only just redeemed by everyone’s favourite delicacy, Audrey Tautou.

© James Travers 2012

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