Jack and I enjoyed this tale of a prickly American loser who finds that the Paris apartment he just inherited comes with a nonagenarian and her daughter. Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith, and Kristin Scott Thomas are in top form and the establishing shots are beautiful, breaking my rule #2 about the Eiffel Tower. Kline (last blogged in Joe Papp in Five Acts and Darling Companion) pronounces every word with such care it's always a pleasure to listen to him. I did find it hard to swallow that his character is supposed to be 57 (Kline's birthdate is 10/24/47) but it was worth it to enjoy his darkly comic moodiness. Thomas (most recently in Nowhere Boy) is a more believable 57 (5/24/60) and brings in her reliable skills and flawless French (she's been living in France since her late teens). Dame Smith (last in Quartet) simply employs body language and subtracts makeup to add a few years (12/28/34) and can do no wrong.
When I lived in Boston in the late 70s-early 80s, playwright Israel Horovitz, a Massachusetts native, was much revered. He wrote the adaptation of his play and here makes his fiction directorial debut, following a documentary. Trivia: he is the father of Beastie Boy Adam. Jack did comment that the movie seemed awfully play-like, i.e. static, but I didn't feel that way. The lovely cinematography is credited to Michel Amathieu and the production design to Pierre-François Limbosch.
The French viager tradition, a sort of reverse mortgage explained here, is cause for much of the humor. The movie could benefit from subtitles; I was glad I understood a bit of French here and there.
As I write this I'm listening to clips from Mark Orton's (most recently scored Nebraska) sprightly soundtrack on amazon. Stay in the room to hear the end of the music over the credits. You'll be rewarded by important bonuses, one tying up a loose end in the plot.
Rotten Tomatoes' averages are too low, at 56% critics and 61% audiences. We liked and recommend it.
Milestone alert! This marks the 700th movie I have watched for the first time since beginning the blog September 3, 2008, or six years and one month ago. Who's counting? I am.
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