I didn't expect much of this movie, whose premises are in itself the biggest cliché of "French auteur quality cinema" from these last few years : a roundabout of characters whose destinies intertwine on one given day, the day their fate will probably change forever (tadaaaa !). Most of the film taking place in an airport, of course, because in case you didn't know, airports are the place where people always reveal to themselves. And so here we go : life, love, death and all this sort of very important matters are being dealt with, in this ridiculous, tedious and over caricatural pattern of a "chick flick".
Everybody's been called, everybody's there. That is every living cliché & every possible approximation of a character : - the obnoxious and angry writer whose only daily duty is to check if his books are being sold in airports and railway stations (but he hides a heart of gold, of course) - the very old couple once separated by life, who meet again after 40 years thanks to the Internet (but they don't know how they look like now... seems they don't really know how to use the Internet after all) - the racist cop who hunts political refugees (only because he can't face the fact that his fiancée has left him, sob sob) - the cute teacher who quits everything to rebuild a new life in Canada (land of promises for the French) and finds Prince Charming right at the airport after making an announcement on the airport loudspeakers (now that is VERY realistic) - the beautiful but dying (but beautiful still) woman who has given up on life (last sequence with her is an absolute must see)...
Let's not forget one gay son and one lesbian daughter (quotas are what they are), one cute little girl, one sad and hungry refugee who discovers the Arc de Triomphe in awe...
Not one single scene, not one single sequence looks genuine, authentic, or just even merely realistic. Everything is fake. Fake feelings, fake situations, fake acting. But true uninspired, bourgeois, chick flick film-making.
Claude Lelouch, come back, they've all gone mad !
Everybody's been called, everybody's there. That is every living cliché & every possible approximation of a character : - the obnoxious and angry writer whose only daily duty is to check if his books are being sold in airports and railway stations (but he hides a heart of gold, of course) - the very old couple once separated by life, who meet again after 40 years thanks to the Internet (but they don't know how they look like now... seems they don't really know how to use the Internet after all) - the racist cop who hunts political refugees (only because he can't face the fact that his fiancée has left him, sob sob) - the cute teacher who quits everything to rebuild a new life in Canada (land of promises for the French) and finds Prince Charming right at the airport after making an announcement on the airport loudspeakers (now that is VERY realistic) - the beautiful but dying (but beautiful still) woman who has given up on life (last sequence with her is an absolute must see)...
Let's not forget one gay son and one lesbian daughter (quotas are what they are), one cute little girl, one sad and hungry refugee who discovers the Arc de Triomphe in awe...
Not one single scene, not one single sequence looks genuine, authentic, or just even merely realistic. Everything is fake. Fake feelings, fake situations, fake acting. But true uninspired, bourgeois, chick flick film-making.
Claude Lelouch, come back, they've all gone mad !