Let’s start with Paris
Can Wait (2016), the first feature-length narrative film written and directed by
Eleanor Coppola. I actually saw a screening of Paris Can Wait a few weeks
before the Tribeca Festival, but it was shown there at least five times, and has
been featured at several other recent film festivals over the last several
months as well. Family connections probably do not hurt in this regard. Ms.
Coppola, of course, has been married to Francis Ford Coppola for over fifty
years now, and the whole family seems to be in the movie biz (her children
Sofia and Roman Coppola, granddaughter Gia Coppola, nephews Nicolas Cage and
Jason Schwartzman, sister in law Talia Shire, etc.), so it is not surprising
that she has a bit of a leg up. Still, at age 80, she is probably the oldest first-time
narrative feature film director on record. Family connections aside, however, her movie will be judged on its own merits. So here goes:
If you like France and French culture (or better still, the idea of
France and/or French culture) Paris Can Wait is your cup of tea (or
glass of Chablis). If you enjoy French cuisine, fine wine, historic country
inns, flirting, or just watching beautiful Diane Lane looking exquisite over
ninety minutes, this may be the movie for you. I appreciate all of these
pleasures, so it worked for me. On the other hand, if an intricate plot or
intellectually provocative premise Is what you're looking for, you might be
disappointed.
As the movie opens, Anne (Lane) and her husband Michael
(Alec Baldwin), an internationally successful movie producer, are preparing to
fly to Paris via private jet for a promised, long-delayed vacation. Michael,
always on his mobile phone, looks up for a moment to announce that there’s some
trouble with his Budapest project, so they will have to go there for a few days
first. Anne demurs, saying that she’s got an earache, and would just as soon
take the train to Paris, where Michael can meet her when he’s done putting out
the fire. At this point, Michael’s
French associate, Jacques (of course) offers to drive her to Paris, as he’s
heading there anyway, and just like that, a road trip movie is born. It’s only
a seven-hour drive, Jacques assures everyone.
And perhaps it would be if Jacques (Arnaud Viard) weren’t
Jacques, the archetype of French joie de
vivre: a charmingly flirtatious gourmand and wine connoisseur, for whom it’s
the journey not the destination (or any arbitrary schedule) that counts. So as
Anne and Jacques head off in his rustic and rusty, sputtering (but cute)
Peugeot convertible, we get a sense of what lies ahead. When Jacques insists
that they just must stop at a magnifique
eatery he knows for a mid-day repast, we realize that Paris Can Wait
is a description as well as a title. This picture is all about the journey. And
it’s a lovely picture indeed: a cozy room in a comfortable, yet toney restaurant, impeccable service, le cuisine
délicieuse,
steady pours of great wine; all of this enhanced, perhaps, by Jacques’ running exposition
about the French (i.e. his) philosophy of life, and inevitably about the mysterious
relations between men and women. Anne observes and accepts all this with a
blend of interest, enjoyment and a little trepidation. When Jacques apologetically
notes that he left his money at home and requests that Anne pay the tab with
her credit card (promising reimbursement later), the trepidation factor
increases. After several more stops (for flowers, for cheese), Anne resigns
herself to the inevitable, they’ll not make it to Paris this day.
There are further small adventures along the way, along with
some touching and mildly revelatory moments, all of which are better discovered
en route than described here. The two leads work well together, and Alec Baldwin is fine in a small but critical role as the career obsessed husband, whose inattentiveness provides some justification (of any is needed) for Anne’s temptation. The photography – of food, countryside, interiors – is quite luscious.All in all, Paris Can Wait is more of a travelogue than a drama or even a romance. I think Coppola wanted to emphasize how Anne found herself stepping out from the shadow cast by her husband's dominating career and personality; and while there's a hint of this, the film is lighter than that - a simple movie really, beautiful and likeable in a luxurious, upper class sort of way; gently reminding us to enjoy the small pleasures of life.
[Incidentally, the story is based, says Eleanor, on a real
life experience she had a few years ago]
92 minutes.
B+
Paris Can Wait
opens in New York and L.A. on May 12, 2017 and will come to the rest of the U.S.
via rolling, sequential release beginning May 19 and continuing over the following
several weeks.
The Exception
(2016) is the first feature film by the well-regarded British theater director
David Leveaux. It is set in 1940, during the first year of the Second World
War, at the Netherlands estate of aging former German Kaiser Wilhelm II
(Christopher Plummer) who has been living in exile there for over twenty years,
fuming about the injustice of it all. (Yes, he was still alive then – I checked!).
The Nazis have concerns for and about the ex-Kaiser – partially out of a
retained reverence or nostalgia for him as a symbol of the German state, but
more pragmatically out of a concern that he might turn against them and ally
himself with the British or with monarchist elements in Deutschland. So they send a young army captain, Stefan Brandt
– played by hunky Jai Courtney [Divergent (2014), Insurgent
(2015)] – to keep tabs on Wilhelm for his “protection”. Brandt promptly gets involved with a pretty Dutch
servant on the Kaiser’s staff, Mieke de Jong – Lily James [Lady Rose on Downton Abbey]. Meanwhile, the SS has
learned that the allies have a spy in the vicinity, which heightens their
concerns for and about the ex-Kaiser, as well as our concerns for Stephan and
Mieke, for reasons I shall not explain. As
the film’s website states, “Secrets are revealed, allegiances are tested”.
All of this raises the question: do we really need yet
another WWII Nazi thriller? Clearly we don’t; yet this one is interesting, with
a clever (if distorted) twist: it not only pits good (the Allies, Jews) versus evil
(the SS and Nazis generally), but also contrasts the moral standards of the old
aristocracy against the amorality of Hitler and his mob. So Wilhelm is
portrayed (brilliantly in Plummer’s able hands) as a genteel, civilized relatively
good guy, while the Nazis, epitomized by the SS chief Heinrich Himmler (a cool
Eddie Marsan) who conveniently pays a visit in the third act, are coarse
unfeeling brutes.
The characterization of Wilhelm as a good guy in this way is
more than a little misleading (if the Wikipedia piece on him is at all
accurate). In fact, he applauded the German conquest of Western Europe as a
vindication of sorts accomplished by “his” armies and, as a strident
anti-Semite, he cheered the German elimination of the Jews from Europe. But
hey, we’re at the point where liberties can be taken with history in the
interest of a good story, right? Remember Inglorious Bastards?
Anyway, The Exception has a pretty good, if
predictable, love story which benefits from the talents of Ms James and Mr.
Courtney, both of whom are good looking and quite willing to shed their
clothing in the spirit of artistic expression and the public’s prurient
interest. The veteran Janet McTeer provides a nice supporting performance, as
the devoted wife of Wilhelm, trying desperately to engineer her husband’s
return as the German monarch. But Plummer is the main attraction.
Facts aside, the movie is competently made, flows along in a
straightforward way, holds one’s interest, and for fans of this sort of thing
or fans of Christopher Plummer, it is worth seeing.
107 minutes.
B+
The Exception
is scheduled for theatrical release nationwide on June 2, 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment