Le Grand Meaulnes (2006) - film review

November, 1910.  Monsieur and Madame Seurel run a small boarding school in a village in the Sologne region of France.  One evening, they take in a new pupil. 17-year-old Augustin Meaulnes, for whom their son François develops an instant fascination.  Augustin, nicknamed "le grand Meaulnes" becomes a favourite amongst his classmates, although his lack of discipline annoys his teacher.  One day, Augustin mysteriously disappears whilst taking a cart to the station to collect François’s grandparents.  The next day, Augustin returns unexpectedly and tells François the most extraordinary story...

Le Grand Ennui would have been a more accurate title.  It is hard to find anything positive to say about this cack-handed adaptation of Alain-Fournier’s great novel, a masterpiece of French literature which celebrates the idealism of youth.  How could a television director of the calibre of Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe and a writer as distinguished as Jean Cosmos be responsible for this sub-mediocre travesty of a film that is so totally lacking in charm, narrative cohesion and sincerity?

It is not easy to pinpoint exactly why this film is so bad, but an ill-chosen cast doesn’t exactly help matters.  Jean-Baptiste Maunier is totally miscast (as becomes evident when his character has to age to manhood and he still looks like a cute fourteen-year-old, afflicted with the world’s most unconvincing moustache) and Nicolas Duvauchelle lacks the charisma for the part of Meaulnes.   But at least these two can act, which is more than can be said for some of the other members of the cast.

The film parts company with the novel near its end and closes with a sequence that is presumably inspired by the ultimate fate of Alain-Fournier, who was killed in action at the beginning of World War I.  Even this part of the film fails to have a positive impact, and instead it merely adds to the impression that virtually everyone involved in the making of this film was suffering from an acute creative bypass.

© filmsdefrance.com 2008

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