Would You Like a Glass of Wine with that Plate of Clichés and Stereotypes, Ma'am?
Written: Nov 11 '06 (Updated Jan 08 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Albert Finney. Freddie Highmore. Abbie Cornish. Provence.
Cons: Unfunny, wit-free script. Unimaginative, dull direction.
The Bottom Line: Film draws lazily on old clichés and stereotypes about greed, power vs. passion, English vs. French, Provence, romantic comedies, etc. Get an Eric Rohmer comedy instead.
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| virtuelle2's Full Review: A Good Year |
‘A Good Year’ isn’t a good film. Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott’s first attempt at comedy, I’m sorry to say, fails to bring true humour or wit to the screen in this strictly paint-by-the-numbers, keep-well-within-the-lines, allegedly funny movie. I’d expected a predictable story just from the trailer, but I didn’t know it would go the well-tread, hackneyed route as much as it did, and most of the performances did not rise above the dead fish material. Now I’m not sure if Peter Mayle’s book on which the film is based should take some blame for the film’s mediocrity, since I haven’t read it. I must say, though, that Mr Mayle’s other non-fiction books about life in Provence were thoroughly delightful reads.
Mr Crowe plays Max Skinner, an obscenely successful and ruthless head bond trader in London, who gets word one day that his recently deceased Uncle Henry has just left him a wine estate in Provence. Pressing questions arise: will Max go to France to claim the land? Will he just sell it and keep the profits? Or will he realise that his has been a life devoid of true value chasing forever after the next million quid or seven? Ooh, bet you couldn’t guess where the story was headed for from the very start! The trailer tells you all you need to know here, as we see Max fondly recalling his summer days as a boy spent with his Uncle Henry in France – but it will take nearly the entire film’s running time before we get to this obvious point.
There’s the supposed romantic comedy aspect to the story that, I guess, must be told. While driving the teeny rental on his hectic first day in Provence, Max bends down to retrieve his blackberry and almost runs down Fanny Chanel (Marion Cotillard) who’s blithely riding her fruit-laden bicycle on the country road. Max doesn’t realise that he's nearly caused a fatal accident. Of course, by all the rules of romantic comedy, Max and Fanny are destined to meet again and somewhere along the way, fall, as they say, in love - or some very unconvincing version thereof – just like the one we see in this film. Lacking any genuine humorous tension between these couple to begin with, what develops between them comes about solely by sheer force of plot.
Other stereotypes in the tale include Gemma, Max’s efficient secretary/assistant at the London brokerage firm, played by Archie Panjabi. Gemma’s not above playing a practical joke on her boss with the rental car she chooses for Max in France, and that might be her character’s ‘funniest’ achievement. Tom Hollander is Charlie Willis, realtor and second funny man to Mr Crowe’s Max. Like most everyone else, Ms Panjabi and Mr Hollander rise to the same uninspired level of insipidity stemming from the script that’s been handed to them.
Of course, the ugly American has to make his obligatory appearance, too. He comes in the persons of the demanding, ignorant, middle-aged couple whose casual and dull clothes simply scream ‘Americans on vacation’. They ask their server if she speaks American, and complain that the menu is in French. Like their costumes and mannerisms, the actors’ mangling of the French was too forced and obvious, so what scant humour there was to begin with quickly evaporates. (By the way, the actor couple have similar difficulty with their fake American accents as well.) Mr Scott also taps into the love-hate relationship between Britons and French through some very old, standard lines of wit-free dialogue involving frogs and such - things we’ve seen and heard delivered in much more amusing fashion previously and elsewhere.
Then there’s Francis Duflot (Didier Bourdon), the crusty old fellow who’s devoted his life entirely to caring for the vines and who seems to be a staple in films about old vineyards. His wife, Ludivine (Isabelle Candelier), may have seen one too many of Sophia Loren’s films from the 1950s, as she makes a bad copy of the loopy, sexy Italian housewife from those vehicles. Incidentally, to perhaps stretch those weak satirical shots at America, the house and yard of the Duflots are decorated in such a way that would make them feel right at home in a pink flamingo suburb of Florida.
In the supposedly funny parts, no one betrays a deft touch for comedy. Mr Crowe just can’t speak lines with any sense of irony or self-deprecation, tellingly shown in the falling-into-the-empty-pool scene, with and without the presence of Ms Cotillard’s Fanny. That segment, like too many others, doesn’t exactly overflow with hilarity. For her part, Ms Cotillard’s village beauty character, the supposedly man-hating Fanny Chanel is created with little imagination or credibility, and in case the audience misses it, her purported sexiness has to be highlighted through the silly reactions of extras in the background.
The whole shaky plot itself takes a few detours that go nowhere, and in the end one cares little about what happens with these drab, stock characters.
Of the cast, despite the poor material given him, the wonderful Albert Finney offers a few moments of heart as Uncle Henry, English expatriate living in Provence. He doesn’t go for a comic tone, and instead plays the happy bon vivant uncle of Max with believability. Another who comes off relatively unscathed is Freddie Highmore as young Max. Like Mr Finney, Master Highmore plays young Max straight, and shows hints of endearing qualities in the little boy. Australian actress Abbie Cornish also cuts through the falseness of tone that prevails here with a more intriguing character turn as Christie Roberts. While she feints a passable American accent, her more controlled deportment lacks the casual air of an average American.
Provence itself, or the one we are shown on celluloid, looks every bit as earthily gorgeous and inviting as its real-life counterpart, but the natural attractiveness of the place can only do so much to make this bore of a film less of one. The British and French pop musical excerpts do please on occasion, but more often they’re awkwardly used and simply intrude upon the proceedings by their very insistent presence.
If anything, this film might serve best as an emergency rental when there’s almost nothing else more interesting on tap. (It wasn’t our first choice; we saw it only by default as we were too late for the film we’d come for.) Even then, you’d have to see it with your expectations brought down to nothing to enjoy this at some level. A few weak giggles were all I could muster, and very infrequent ones at that. Spare yourself this embarrassingly humourless and unsmart comedy, which I can rate only as a not-recommend, two-star film.
Recommended:
No
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Script
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virtuelle2
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