This delightful story of an English couple in their early sixties celebrating their anniversary in Paris isn't all joyful but it's all good. And, though I laughed when in the first scene Jim Broadbent is burping, grimacing, and tapping his chest, rest assured it's not a variation of Rule #1. Broadbent (last blogged in The Iron Lady) is up to his usual high standards as stressed-out professor Nick enjoying his high-maintenance wife Meg, played marvelously by Lindsay Duncan (I must have seen her in Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) and About Time, but I couldn't quite place her. She's also done quite a lot of TV. She's 63 now and is gorgeous). Jeff Goldblum (after I wrote about him in Morning Glory I mentioned him in The Grand Budapest Hotel) has a small but pivotal role. There's quite a lot of eating in the movie (it's Paris, after all), and one scene tickled me when the camera is trained closely on Goldblum's face as he eats and talks with his mouth full. Not disgusting, just noteworthy.
Director Roger Michell (after I covered him for directing Morning Glory we saw and liked his Hyde Park on Hudson) has worked before with writer Hanif Kureishi (I did like My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) a lot) but I haven't seen the ones on which they collaborated.
The lovely music by Jeremy Sams (not his first job with Michell) can be previewed on the amazon page.
Lucky for me, I speak a little French, because there are no subtitles that I recall from seeing it ten days ago. Obviously the filmmakers knew that not everyone would understand everything, so perhaps those lines weren't important.
Jack couldn't make it but Mary Ellen and I enjoyed it a lot. She plans to see it again. For a change, the critics are in agreement with me, averaging 89% on rottentomatoes, but audiences, not so much at 56. Try to catch it in its last three nights locally.
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