Film Review
For his fourth feature for the cinema, director Ivan Calbérac
adapted his moderately successful stage play
L'Étudiante et Monsieur Henri,
having spent most of the last half decade working primarily for French
television. Calbérac's directing career got off to a
flying start in 2002 with
Irène, which was
nominated for a César, but seems to have languished in recent
years, and his latest film, a lacklustre comedy, looks unlikely to
reverse this trend. Recently, there has been a spate of
stage-to-screen transpositions in French cinema - some successful:
Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte's
Le
Prénom (2012); others less so: Richard Berry's
Nos
femmes (2015). Calbérac's tepid offering
definitely belongs to the latter category.
On the plus side,
L'Étudiante
et Monsieur Henri boasts a talented cast headed by veteran
performer Claude Brasseur, still a force to be reckoned with as he
stands on the threshold of his ninth decade. Brasseur's previous
comedy outings includes such French hits as
Un éléphant ça trompe
énormément (1976) and
Camping
(2006), although he is better known as a dramatic actor, with an
impressive list of film credits that stretch all the way back to the
mid-1950s. Placed opposite this well-worn cinematic monolith is
newcomer Noémie Schmidt, a fresh faced talent making a promising
screen debut and looking improbably at ease alongside her illustrious
co-star. It was a brave decision to cast two actors opposite one
another who are at the extreme ends of their careers, but it is one of
the factors that works in the film's favour, both actors bringing a
similar childishness (the pettiness of old age versus the inexperience
of youth) to their portrayals.
As engaging as the two leads are, both are pretty well eclipsed by
Guillaume de Tonquedec, who steals the film as the dull-as-ditchwater
accountant who ends up going out of his way to make himself attractive
to a woman half his age - this essentially involves him swapping his
immaculately pressed suits for trendy adolescent garb and learning how
to text (badly). Having already made an impact in
Le Prénom and the popular
television series
Fais pas ci, fais
pas ça, de Tonquedec is shaping up to be big star, albeit
somewhat belatedly. Welcome as her presence is,
Frédérique Bel is wasted in a thankless role that is more
a crude plot device than a believable character.
You can see why
L'Étudiante
et Monsieur Henri worked well on the stage but on screen it
falls mostly flat, the humour feels strained throughout and for the
most part the film struggles to extort more than an indulgent smile
from its spectator. The characters are unsubtle caricatures that
have absolutely no depth to them - what you see is what you get.
As a result, the story pans out exactly as you expect it to, with an
ending that is completely predictable, almost guaranteed to leave you
groaning with disappointment. The film is tolerably entertaining
up until the point when it starts to get preachy, churning out
well-worn platitudes of the 'Live life for the present' and 'It's later
than you think' ilk like there was no tomorrow. Despite some
creditable performances, Ivan Calbérac's fourth feature
struggles to lift itself above the mundane and ultimately it ends up
like a collapsed soufflé.
© James Travers 2015
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Next Ivan Calbérac film:
Irène (2002)
Film Synopsis
Monsieur Henri is a man in his late seventies who is struggling to cope
with living by himself in his large Parisian apartment. The
archetypal grumpy old man, he is in no hurry to give up his
independence so he finally agrees to his son Paul's proposition of
renting out one of his rooms. The prospective tenant turns out to
be a young student, Constance, who is desperate to find accommodation,
after escaping from her bossy father. Monsieur Henri appears to
be completely impervious to the young woman's charms but immediately
sees how she may be of use to him. He offers the student a rent-free
stay in his appartment for three months providing she helps him to break up his son's
marriage to Valérie, the daughter-in-law he has always
detested. Constance has no option but to agree and she has no
difficulty turning Paul's head...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.