Suffocating, exhausting, overbearing, insufferable, the kind of micromanaged Jewish ‘Smotherlove’ to drive a son (or daughter) to the psychiatrist’s couch. Or, as in the case of French writer Romain Gary, to the typewriter (two Goncourt Prizes) and flyboy heroics in WWII. Gary’s true tall tale/auto-bio was filmed before, Jules Dassin with an impossibly miscast Melina Mercouri in 1970, but Charlotte Gainsbourg’s drudge-with-a-dream Mother Courage is more within the margin of terror, unafraid to make this single Mom remarkable and horrific. As the much put-upon son attempting to live up to maman’s absurd dreams of la gloire (the two out of Russia thru Poland), Pierre Niney, with his sleek Art Deco Jewish aspect, makes this literary fall-guy an almost believable human being.* Co-writer/director Eric Barbier relies too heavily on consistent arrhythmic editing and staccato attack, like a case of the hiccups you can’t get rid of, but the story gains interest (and laughs) as one whopper follows another in Gary’s progress thru love, war, equal-opportunity anti-Semitism & guilty son syndrome.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Awarded for the unfortunate YVES SAINT LAURENT/’14, Niney is just as good in FRANTZ/’17, a far better work. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/02/yves-saint-laurent-2014.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/09/frantz-2016.html
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *If anyone in French film is contemplating a George Gershwin bio-pic, Niney’s your man.
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