Andy-296 Review of Just a Sigh

Just a Sigh (2013)

Typical talky French film describing a relationship

[6/10 · 22 January 2014]

A typical talky French film describing a romantic relationship between a man and a woman. Perhaps the unusual here is that the two main actors are older than usual. Gabriel Byrne was more than 60 years old when he filmed this; Emmanuelle Devos almost 50 (both look a bit younger than their years). She is a struggling French theater actress, He is an Englishman traveling to France to say goodbye to a dear friend, though we never get to know much more than that about him. They met on the train though at that time they did not talk to each other; in Paris, she finds him again by chance outside a church during a funeral. She decides to crash the funeral, and then follows him to his hotel; she insinuates herself into his hotel room where they soon have sex, even if they barely know each other. With time, we learn more about the Devos character: she has a boyfriend in Paris she is trying to contact to tell him some very important news to no avail. The Devos character is flaky and difficult, but she is not completely unlikable. The Gabriel Byrne character, on the other hand is a cipher, as the actor has an expressionless look throughout the movie: this is possible the worst flaw of the film. There are a couple of fine scenes that has little to do with the plot: in the best one, we see her during an audition. The soundtrack has some fine classical music, though it has no relation to the plot or the movie.