Thursday, November 24, 2005

KINGS AND QUEEN




Drama
Original title: Rois et reine
In French with English subtitles.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Emmanuelle Devos: Nora Cotterelle, a 35-year-old single mother
Mathieu Amalric: her ex-lover Ismaël Vuillard, a talented musician
Nathalie Boutefeu: Chloé Jenssens, Nora’s sister
Valentin Lelong: Elias Cotterelle, Nora’s father

REVIEW
This is one awful movie about grim things like suicide, terminally ill people, mental institutions, broken relations, self-guilt and dishonesty. The acting at best is mediocre and often worse. There are frequent noisy shouting matches and the flashbacks absolutely confusing because no attempt has been made to make the person look any younger in the earlier episodes. So you don’t immediately know if it’s a flashback or the present. By the time you figure it out, it’s back to the other time period.
One other thing: everything moves at a snail’s pace with lots and lots of words. Consequently the movie is more than 2½ hours long.

CLASSIFICATION


P.S.
When I came into the theatre at showtime there was no one there. “Did they know something I didn’t?” I asked myself. I soon found out the answer to that one. When I walked out part way through, the film played on to a completely empty theatre.

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