À jamais (2016)
Directed by Benoît Jacquot

Film Review

After his lush period piece Journal d'une femme de chambre (2015) director Benoît Jacquot is back in minimalist mode, and happy to jump onto the spiritualist band wagon that seems to have hijacked French cinema in recent months.  Forming a none-too-edifying triptych with Olivier Assayas's Personal Shopper and Rebecca Zlotowski's Planetarium (2016), Jacquot's latest offering À jamais (a.k.a. Never Ever) takes us into the spooky realm of the paranormal and (like the two other films, released within a few weeks of this one) collapses before our eyes into a heap of excessively adorned vacuity.  The film is supposedly based on the novella The Body Artist by the acclaimed American author Don DeLillo but the plot looks more like something that has been cooked up by an unimaginative teenager after reading too many (or possibly too few) M.R. James ghost stories.  Suffice it to say that Jacquot's own contribution to the latest spiritualist fad is as misguided as all the others, but at least it doesn't get completely carried away with its overblown artistry.  Jacquot at least knows when to rein back his excesses.

The task of adapting Don DeLillo's pretty unadaptable book fell to débutante scénariste Julia Roy who - coincidentally - gets to play the lead role in the film, an honour for the virtually unknown actress.  Given the taxing nature of this assignment, Roy makes a reasonable stab at pulling together a fairly coherent narrative, but her lack of writing experience shows throughout and this is the main reason why À jamais has ended up being one of Jacquot's weakest offerings (possibly his worst film to date).  The first third of the film works well enough, thanks in no small measure to the solid presence of Mathieu Amalric and Jacquot's aptitude for dealing with torrid love affairs.  It all starts to go horribly wrong when Amalric suddenly exits the picture (at least in corporeal form) and Roy is left struggling to fill the one hour void that remains before the closing credits mercifully appear and save us from terminal boredom.

The fact there is so much incident crammed into the first thirty minutes of the film only makes the lack of content in the hour that follows all the more evident.  With an unconvincingly neurotic Roy haunted by ghostly visitations from her ex-lover, we hardly care if she has powers of extra sensory perception, is totally unhinged or is merely rehearsing for her next performance stunt.  The writing is so woefully inadequate and Roy's performance so monotonous that we just lose interest, if not the will to live.  It is left to Jacquot to salvage this wreck of a film as best he can.  To be fair, he makes a reasonable stab at doing just this but no amount of elegant direction and artful shot compositions is going to save this lumbering disaster.  The only ace Jaquot has up his sleeve is Jeanne Balibar (odd that she should agree to appear in the film, given she is Amalric's ex-partner in real life) - but her formidable talents are too underutilised to make much of an impact.  À jamais had the potential to be a remarkable film, but Jacquot's foolish over-confidence in the abilities of his latest muse has left him with an embarrassing misfire.

Film Synopsis

Jacques Rey is a middle-aged filmmaker who falls madly in love with Laura, a performance artist who is half his age.  Rey's entourage is taken by surprise when he suddenly announces he intends marrying his new lover.  Naturally, Rey's former girlfriend Isabelle is far from happy with this turn of events.  Carried away on a tide of passion, Rey and Laura take up residence in the former's house by the sea and begin their married life together.  Just as Isabelle predicted it isn't long before the passion turns cold and Laura walks out on her devoted husband.  Devastated, the filmmaker takes to his bike and crashes into the back of a lorry.  The news of Rey's apparent suicide hits Laura badly.  She returns to her husband's house and soon becomes convinced that it is occupied by another presence.  Can it be that Rey has returned to Laura from beyond the grave - or is she just slowly going out of her mind...?