Film Review
This eagerly awaited seventh film from acclaimed director Jean-Paul Rappeneau certainly
lived up to expectations from the point of view of its sense of spectacle and production
quality. Beautifully filmed, with a keen eye to period detail, not to mention a
star-studded cast,
Bon voyage would seem to have
a lot going for it - but look a little closer and it is easy to see that it doesn't
compare well with some of Rappeneau's earlier films. It is in fact something
of a mess.
The film has two main problems. Firstly, it attempts to span too many genres
- it tries to be a black comedy, yet it's also a war-time drama; it is a romantic
melodrama, but it is also a thriller; and it's also a parody of each of the above..
Whilst combining different genres is not in itself a bad thing, it can be confusing for
the spectator if it is carried too excess and for no apparent reason, particularly when
the plot is also overly complicated. And the plot's complexity is where the
film really does fall down.
Bon voyage
has so many plot strands that not only does the film feel muddled, hurried and
confused from start to finish, it also feels painfully contrived. This naturally
creates a headache for the spectator, who has a real struggle trying to keep up with the
film's haphazard rambling and criss-crossing from one storyline to another, but
it also robs the film of any real depth and emotional intensity. You would
hardly think this was the work of the same director who gave us the magnificent
Cyrano
de Bergerac in 1990.
Although there is certainly a lot of acting talent
in the cast, very little of this actually comes through on screen. The only two
actors who come close to giving a credible performance are Yvan Attal and Virginie Ledoyen,
but they are both badly underused. Those actors who get most of the screen time
(Depardieu, Adjani, Derangère) seem to have some difficulty taking the film seriously,
as can easily be discerned from some painfully unsubtle acting.
For all its faults,
Bon voyage has just about has what it takes to
be mildly entertaining. It may be a little on the long side, but some of the comedy
works rather well (particularly the tongue-in-cheek parody). There is enough energy
to keep the narrative moving and hold our attention - even if it is all rather a
somewhat shallow and confusing experience.
© James Travers 2005
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Next Jean-Paul Rappeneau film:
Belles familles (2015)
Film Synopsis
Paris, 1940. A few days before France falls to German occupation, a famous actress,
Viviane Denvers, triggers a series of events that will irrevocably change the lives of
herself and those around her. When she accidentally kills an unwelcome suitor, she
appeals to a former boyfriend, Frédéric Auger, to help her. Whilst
trying to dispose of the body, Frédéric is arrested and finds himself in
prison, where he strikes up a friendship with a crook named Raoul. The two men manage
to escape in the chaos which accompanies the arrival of the German troops. They
head for the town of Bordeaux in the Free Zone where, coincidentally, Viviane is being
propositioned by a government official, Beaufort. Frédéric then becomes
embroiled in a scheme to smuggle a Jewish scientist out of the country...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.