Film Review
After
Lemming (2005), a thriller
that was too weird for its own good, and
Le Moine (2011), a spiritual fantasy
that is weird
tout court, Dominik Moll returns to the dark, unpredictable
comedy of his first notable success,
Harry, un ami
qui vous veut du bien (2000), and offers up a similarly quirky portrait
of mid-life crisis.
Des nouvelles de la planète Mars
exploits the same plot device of this earlier comedy-thriller, namely the
havoc wreaked on a dysfunctional family by the arrival of a potentially dangerous
stranger, but, lacking a sufficiently strong premise beyond that, it drifts
without purpose and merely supplies a series of mildly entertaining moments
rather than a satisfying whole. After a promising intro, the film has
difficulty maintaining its momentum and goes completely off the boil in its
last act.
Obvious though its imperfections are, this isn't a bad romp - Moll's most
entertaining offering since
Harry. The director's eccentric
humour - which tends to involve annoying infestations of small creepy animals,
pets doing unspeakable things and mutilation caused by flying axes - is always
welcome, as are his surreal flights of fancy which drive home how dangerously
unstable the main protagonists are as their lives spin out of control.
There is imagination and flair aplenty on both the scripting and directing
fronts, but it's all pretty scattergun and doesn't add up to much - just
another humorous amble across the perilous mine-strewn battlefields of mid-life
crisis.
The only thing holding
Des nouvelles de la planète Mars
together is the comedy rapport of its lead actors François Damiens
and Vincent Macaigne. The down-to-earth Damiens makes the perfect foil
for the scarily deranged Macaigne and their scenes together provide the film
with its funniest and most truthful moments. With every other character
looking like a silly archetype, it is left to these two amiable dog-eared
thesps to lend the film at least some semblance of reality and prevent it
from going completely off the rails. Moll and his cinematographer Jean-Francois
Hensgens supply some striking visuals which go some way to exteriorising
the chaos that is overtaking Damiens's character as he loses control and
tumbles into a Kafkaesque night of the soul, but in the end the whole show
is let down by a script that is neither particularly original nor sufficiently
focused to leave us fully satisfied.
© James Travers 2017
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Since his divorce, Philippe Mars, a mild-mannered computer programmer, has
found it ever more difficult to keep his grip on reality. When he isn't
perplexed by his children's latest eccentricities - his son is apparently
turning into a militant vegetarian, his daughter is now obsessed with making
a success of her life - he must put up with the demands of his ex-wife and
an artist sister who has the weirdest tastes in art. And then Jérôme
forces his way into life, a former colleague who lost his job after throwing
an axe at his boss. With no income and nowhere to go, Jérôme
persuades Philippe to let him stay with him until he can straighten out his
life. Philippe's already precarious existence is about to spin out
of control altogether...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.