Magnolia Pictures | 2009 | 94 mins. | Rated R
Few would deny that young, beautiful woman tend to be distracting for men. What’s more, there’s a strange notion that older men are more easily manipulated than younger men by the whims of “hot little things”. It is this notion that forms the basis for writer/director Anne Fontaine’s (Coco Before Chanel) The Girl from Monaco (La Fille de Monaco). A mischievous look at blind desire, the film was nominated for two Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars. The nominations were for acting; Roschdy Zem and Louise Bourgoin, deserved the honors, but the film as a whole is somewhat weak, playing like a hodgepodge of events that don’t quite form an entire story.
The film jumps right into the meat of the story with no introduction: lawyer Bertrand Beauvois (Fabrice Luchini) is in Monaco defending a woman accused of murder, a high-profile case that requires he be assigned a bodyguard for protection from unsavory figures. Oddly, he is not informed of this event, only finding out when Christophe (Zem) appears to be stalking him on the street.
After an appearance on a television show to discuss the case, Bertrand meets Audrey (Bourgoin), the local weather girl. Audrey, a gorgeous socialite, has dated and bedded lots of men. When she discovers who Betrand is, she showers him with attention and affection that may or may not be a put on. As it happens, Christophe has his own history with Audrey, and he tries in vain to warn his charge against getting involved with her.
Fontaine, who co-wrote the script with Benoît Graffin, is so devoted to the humor and psychology of her May-December affair, that the trial that starts all this gets short shrift. While Betrand tries to focus on winning the case for his client, he spends far more time trying to win the heart of Audrey. Similarly, Fontaine only occasionally goes back to the trial, almost as if it’s an afterthought. When she does go back to the trial, Fontaine plays up the drama inherent in the court case, forgetting she’s been focusing on the humor of the affair for a majority of the film.
The unevenness of The Girl from Monaco is further highlighted in the films last 10 minutes. Things take an inexplicable dark turn that’s completely at odds with the rest of the film. Though the focus is on the affair between Audrey and Betrand, it’s the relationship between Christophe and Betrand that truly drives the film. While the final moments of The Girl From Monaco try to make that clear, it comes off as somehow half baked.
The Girl from Monaco definitely offers some laughs and all of the actors are solid. Unfortunately, the story itself is too disjointed to feel like you’ve completed an entire journey by the films end. Major holes in the plot, and the way some relationships are handled, will likely leave you wishing for something better.
Magnolia Pictures delivers The Girl from Monaco in a mediocre 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, one that somehow makes the lush locations in the film merely serviceable. Most glaring is a thickly-lathered layer of edge halos, bright white lines around anything dark in the baking sunlight. Aside from that, everything looks satisfactory, rendering an acceptable level of depth. It’s a little on the dark side, but plenty of bright colors and skin tones are pleasing.
The audio is pretty solid, coming with its original French language track that puts emphasis on dialogue. Splashes of water on the coast and surround effects at play in the courtroom are sparse and uninteresting, but support the material well enough. The English subtitles seem like they might be a little off, translated for more literal purposes (such as “merci” transforming into “I can”), but there’s no grammatical errors that prevent processing of the material. Subs are also available in Spanish, while a 2.0 track can also be found on the disc.
The special features are limited:
• Sequence 14: The Making of The Girl from Monaco (18:02, 4×3) this covers one of the earlier scenes from the film — one where Bertrand turns away an earlier lover to Christophe.
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