Ugh, if I have to sit through one more dreary movie. Maybe cinema IS dead after all.
It's like the writer and director of "French Exit" went about making their own respective movies without consulting each other at all. The writer thought he was making a zany dark comedy in the "Harold and Maude" vein, while the director slaps the comedy down at every turn and opts instead for a morose, joyless, and droning movie that doesn't even have the courtesy to make sense.
This is another in the long line of movies that gives us a character some other character wants to not be in love with but can't help being in love with, to the point that she flies all the way to Paris to reclaim him, despite the fact that the person she's in love with is lacking a single quality that would make anyone love him in the first place. Michelle Pfeiffer gives glimmers of a feisty performance, but she's undermined by the material, and her character doesn't have any arc. The film brings together a random assortment of characters who all inexplicably sleep over nightly at Pfeiffer's apartment, despite the fact that they all are adults and have homes of their own. I'm sure we're supposed to think this is quirky and adorable, but it's irritating as hell.
The only character I came close to wanting to spend time with was Valerie Mahaffey, as a daffy but endearing friend who's adopted by Pfeiffer and her blank slate of a son (Lucas Hedges). I don't know why she wanted to be around these people, and the movie never gives us a good reason either.
What a total failure.
Grade: D-
It's like the writer and director of "French Exit" went about making their own respective movies without consulting each other at all. The writer thought he was making a zany dark comedy in the "Harold and Maude" vein, while the director slaps the comedy down at every turn and opts instead for a morose, joyless, and droning movie that doesn't even have the courtesy to make sense.
This is another in the long line of movies that gives us a character some other character wants to not be in love with but can't help being in love with, to the point that she flies all the way to Paris to reclaim him, despite the fact that the person she's in love with is lacking a single quality that would make anyone love him in the first place. Michelle Pfeiffer gives glimmers of a feisty performance, but she's undermined by the material, and her character doesn't have any arc. The film brings together a random assortment of characters who all inexplicably sleep over nightly at Pfeiffer's apartment, despite the fact that they all are adults and have homes of their own. I'm sure we're supposed to think this is quirky and adorable, but it's irritating as hell.
The only character I came close to wanting to spend time with was Valerie Mahaffey, as a daffy but endearing friend who's adopted by Pfeiffer and her blank slate of a son (Lucas Hedges). I don't know why she wanted to be around these people, and the movie never gives us a good reason either.
What a total failure.
Grade: D-