Communist newspaper journalist Bruno is suffering a mid-life crisis. His political beliefs have been battered and he's torn between his wife and girlfriend. Trying to find bearing in his life, he then meets Beatrice. Life marks him physically, time after time.
Absolute gem of a movie, well played, sharply plotted and very funny. This a great example of what the French do well and Hollywood needs to learn.
Daniel Auteuil has long been a favourite of mine and doesn't disappoint here, providing a wonderful characterisation. Kristin Scott Thomas was born to play the sexually repressed ice maiden - she obviously had a great time making this film. Quite how her husband will take her admission that she was playing herself is a point of debate, however! Emmanuelle Devos and Ludivine Sagnier provide rock solid support, ably demonstrating why they are two of the best actresses working today.
Original, bizarre and extremely satisfying, Petites Coupures is essential viewing. < less
This is quality stuff indeed: a French drama that is distinguished by some particularly striking playing, notably from Britain’s Kristin Scott Thomas, acting quite as ... more >
This is quality stuff indeed: a French drama that is distinguished by some particularly striking playing, notably from Britain’s Kristin Scott Thomas, acting quite as impeccably in French as in her native tongue. A gem. < less
In some respects, Bruno (played by the interminably hangdog Daniel Auteuil) is not having a good week.
His wife Gaelle has had enough - she met up with Nathal... more >
In some respects, Bruno (played by the interminably hangdog Daniel Auteuil) is not having a good week.
His wife Gaelle has had enough - she met up with Nathalie, a young intern at Bruno's communist newspaper, and discovered he was having a fling. Gaelle has flown to Turin to stay with her mother. Nathalie is not much happier - she overheard Bruno describing her as a braindead kid whose fascination with the word "love" makes him want to vomit. A favour to a friend sends Bruno into the Grenoble countryside and - before you can say hang on a minute - he is giving lifts to errant young wives and clutching at Beatrice (played in impeccable French by Kristen Scott Thomas) in the nighttime dark of an abandoned church ruin seconds prior to getting involved in a rural pub brawl.
Scripted and directed by the former editor of that renowned French film journal Cahiers du cinema, Pascal Bonitzer, Petite Coupures (or Small Cuts) is a curious melange - as women left, right and centre throw themselves at Auteuil, you can't help but be reminded of Woody Allen's lesser efforts; and yet, with a Bernard Herman-esque score lifted almost verbatim from Vertigo, you watch anxiously waiting for whatever it is that the score would seem to suggest is going to happen, your eye taken by the Chekovian introduction of a gun in Act 3; this is still further offset by the slightly farcical elements imposed during Bruno's stay in Beatrice's countryhome (think Renoir's La Regle du Jeu by way of Peter's Friends).
It all looks very nice, to be sure, and there are some good performances but there is a lightness here - a sense that too much time was taken up ensuring the wrong elements were fine tuned at the expense of narrative and - finally - a point.
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