French Exit

There are some films that you know you're probably going to like five minutes after the opening shot. And then there are those that slot into the opposite camp. Much like French Exit. This is a comedy drama that's very light on comedy, and whatever drama there is happens in a baffling, nonsensical way. Patrick deWitt adapted this from his own novel and, though he won me over with his script for The Sisters Brothers, he quickly lost me with this one.

The film is nominally about a high class New Yorker, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, and her boring son, Lucas Hedges, who one day find themselves insolvent. Oh-so-whimsically a plan is hatched to move to Paris and after selling most of their belongings, off they sail. And I mean sail, the dickheads taking a cruise liner rather than flying. That's the kind of film it is. Oh, and there's a fucking cat wandering around, serving no noticeable purpose until later in the film, when things really go to pot.

Pfeiffer is pretty good, considering what she's given to do and say but that's about all the nice I can lay on this steamer. Perhaps if deWitt had handed over his book to an objective eye and the director, Azazel Jacobs, had been worth his salt, this may have turned out differently. As it is, I haven't seen a more pretentious, irritating film for a long time.

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I've just noticed that as famous as she is, Pfeiffer hasn't been in many good films. The best of hers that I can come up with is Richard Donner's Ladyhawke (1985) but I may be just being ironically nostalgic. For a much better deWitt adaptation, see the aforementioned The Sisters Brothers (2018), directed by the great Jacques Audiard.