Rien à faire (1999) - film review

An unemployed working class woman, Marie, has difficulty filling her empty days until one day she meets Pierre at a supermarket checkout.  He is also out of work and has little to do except attend job interviews and do the shopping.  Both Pierre and Marie are married, but come from opposite ends of the social spectrum, Pierre enjoying a lifestyle Marie can only dream of.   Despite their differences, their shared predicament brings them together and their friendship quickly turns into a passionate love affair...

In French cinema, the simplest subjects often make the most striking films, and Marion Vernoux’s charming but touching romantic drama Rien à faire bears that out.  Although the plot is admittedly anodyne stuff, its treatment is pure auteur and the result is a captivating film showing the brutal fragility of an ephemeral romance.  The inventive cinematography vividly conveys the mood of the lead characters – frequent moments of euphoria piercing a sense of suppressed melancholia as Marie and Pierre discover a shared relief from their monotonous and unfulfilled lives.   Compelling naturalistic performances from Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Patrick Dell’Isola make this a satisfying and moving minimalist drama about those eternal themes of love, loneliness and desire.


© James Travers 2002

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