d.rust This is a film that showed up on my screen unexpectedly one evening as I waited for another film on another channel. I was hooked immediately by it.There are some things that are very annoying in the film, first and foremost is Matthew's completely illegitimate yanqui accent. Never have I heard a crappier way of speaking, kind of like a stylized Burgess Meredith's Penquin wah wagh wahh. Very annoying.The second is his total lack of parisienne immersion. He says "merci" like it's coming out of the side of his mouth. He barely knows the difference between "s'il te plaît" and "s'il vous plaît" or when to use them.The third is his totally unlikeable offspring. Anderson acts like a cat in heat with the son, and the son is a complete dickwad. There is a scene late into the movie that will make you cry out, "NOOOOO!" because it is completely incongruous with the rest of the movie. You'll know what I am saying when you see it.Good points: the relationship of Matthew and Pauline. A good deal of love passes through the two of them and they seem to enjoy every moment of it. Another is how Matthew keeps a running count in his head: "Two years, six months, eleven days." I keep a running count: today is five years, six months, exactly. Yet another great point, Matthew's apartment is gorgeous, as is the house in Saint-Malo.My final say on this film: directors are constantly changing their work from the original source: why could Matthew not have been a limey who migrated to the USA instead of affecting a horrible, horrible "'murican" accent. After all, film-making isn't "heart surgery".

rooee Sandra Nettelbeck's zombified film, based upon the French novel La Douceur Assassine, ostensibly opens where Michael Haneke's Amour ended. But while Haneke's film sought to challenge our principles and provoke topical debate, Nettelbeck's is more likely to challenge the patience and provoke irritation in all but the most undemanding. The dialogue is trite, the relational dynamics are soapy, and the tone is sentimental.Matthew Morgan (Michael Caine) has just put his wife (Jane Alexander) to eternal sleep. He's condemned to shuffling around his plush Parisian apartment, now an echoing mausoleum, until such a time that he plucks up the courage to meet his wife in the thereafter. But his dwindling existence is suddenly electrified when he's hit upon (or, contrives to be hit upon) by a young dance instructor named Pauline (Clémence Poésy). Her father is dead. "You remind me of my father," she tells Matthew. This gives you an idea of the sort of script we're dealing with.The essential premise, which wavers between faintly creepy and screw-faced baffling, wouldn't be such a problem if there were deeper layers of drama underneath. But it's all surface. Potentially difficult issues – e.g. assisted suicide – are brushed against gently, while others are glossed over entirely – e.g. the dubious sexual energy between lonely old Matthew and daddy's little princess Pauline. And this is before Matthew's vile children (Justin Kirk and Gillian Anderson) turn up to do some shopping and tell their dad he's selfish. It's a film world where characters are seemingly more interested in soap operatics than behaving like recognisable human beings; and where men and women relate like alien species.Michael Caine is suitably bumbling and shell-shocked in the title role, even though, playing an American, he adopts a bizarre accent that prances across most of the Western hemisphere, often in the course of a single line. Poésy is adorable; except, beyond the basic knowledge of her own bereavement, we never truly understand what draws her so powerfully to Matthew, let alone why she sidles up to his hospital bed in a see-through top. Anderson provides a brief burst of energy, but it's a cameo really. The heavy lifting is left to Kirk, and it's a charmless delivery of a charmless character."It wasn't supposed to be like this!" cries Matthew. Another clunker of a line from a screenplay blandified to oblivion. No alarms and no surprises; the surreal, vanishing point horror that is spousal grief is rendered as hazy anaesthesia, where the senses are dulled until some younger model comes along to reawaken them. The sequences where Matthew relives conversations with his wife are presumably meant to represent reflective recollection, but I couldn't help wondering if they might be born of guilt for burying his face in Pauline's boobs while he wept for his loss.The cinematography is a watercolour array of picture postcards depicting landmark Paris and quaint surrounding countryside, scored to trickling piano texture that doesn't so much complement the drama as provide a marshmallow mattress topper.A film with a geriatric theme needn't be geriatric in pace and tone. It patronises the very people whose plight it seeks to illuminate. How about some psychological insight? Some effort to chart this melancholy territory? Okay, we see Matthew's desire to emerge from his malaise. But what does that malaise really look like? Feel like? By the end we're none the wiser, and one is left concluding that the film simply isn't trying hard enough on any level.

James De Bello 5/10 There are only four reasons this movie doesn't get a three (or lower) out of ten: firstly, and most importantly, Michael Caine's performance: even amongst a failing movie he manages to emerge victorious in a riveting performance, which is the main and probably only reason I endured sitting in for two hours, never getting bored and actually being involved with the movie despite it trying so hardly to keep me away from itself. Clemence Poesy's performance and charisma is another reason for which you get effortlessly dragged into the narrative, yet just as quickly dragged out. The other two reasons are the calm and beautiful cinematography and the ideas the movie is trying to deal with. Yet it simply does not manage to tackle them as much as it thinks it is. The screenplay is so uneven, the drama so uninteresting and senseless, character motivations change randomly throughout and in the end the movie just feels a little too much pretentious. With the exception of the two leads the actors are actually delivering very bad performances and whenever they were talking I was cringing. The movie also relies too much on coincidence and takes too much for granted: continuously throughout it I was screaming at the screen "fuck you, how did that come to happen!?" and to this contributed a terrible editing that cut from place to place in a very weird way. The direction was all over the place and managed to make Hans Zimmer, one of the grates composer of all times, compose a dull score. Despite having some interesting, yet no really noble, intentions and two very good performances from its leads, the movie is a failure in what it wished to deliver and there is close to zero true emotion.

leonblackwood Review: This is a sweat movie about a elderly man who can't find the will to live after the death of his wife. After deciding to live in Paris, he befriends a young French girl who brings a little joy to his life but he can't fight the depression from loosing his wife. Although I found the storyline touching, I did get bored after a while because the pace of the movie is really slow and it's nearly 2 hours long. You do get to see Michael Caine in a different light and he does bring a lot of emotion to his role, but I found myself waiting for something to happen. The chemistry between Caine and Poesy was quite good, but the director didn't have to make it so long. In all, I did find the film to be a little depressing, but the acting is great and it was funny to see Caine trying to dance. Average!Round-Up: Michael Caine seems to be taking a lot of independent roles lately, which isn't surprising after starring in big blockbusters like the Batman movies, Now You See Me and putting his voice to the Cars 2. He always pulls out great performances, no matter what the budget is, which is why he will always be classed as one of the best in his field. Clemence Poesy has also starred in some big movies which range from the Harry Potter franchise to 127 Hours and In Bruges so she isn't a newcomer. I liked her sweat and innocent approach to her role which really worked in this movie, especially alongside Caine's character. Anyway, the movie does drag after a while but the subject matter is touching.Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $2millionI recommend this movie to people who are into there touching dramas about a elderly man fighting depression after he looses his wife to cancer. 4/10