5 April 2024.
By Neptune
This week – two comedies to take you away from the miseries of the world – run to them!
THE PALACE ***
This latest film by Roman Polanski has divided both critics and audiences. Some have said it’s the worst film ever made by the master Polanski (“Tess”, “Chinatown”, “The Pianist”), others have appreciated its sharp satire of the rich and famous in a luxury hotel. And of course, the wealthy, especially those in Gstaad where the film is located, have denigrated it as vulgar and distasteful. But then it’s never pleasant to view one’s identity in an exaggerated reflection of oneself.
And that’s what Polanski has done here, brilliantly and hilariously, with somewhat vicious clarity through the different characters residing in the grand hotel between Christmas and New Year. One could say he has done a bit of a Truman Capote, who was blacklisted after he wrote a tell-all book about his celebrity friends.
There is the rich widow, played by an ingenious Fanny Ardant, whose sole love (beyond her toyboy, the hotel’s plumber) is her tiny dog who cannot poo anywhere except on grass – but it’s snowy winter up in the mountains! So the hotel has to find a solution. There’s an old billionaire Texan (John Cleese!) who has just married an adorably plump child bride and we follow their wants and needs. There is a Hollywood star (Mickey Rourke) who insists on a room in the overbooked hotel, and a group of super rich Russian thugs and their molls who also need lots of attention. Plus the bevy of old, face-lifted caricatures that start off the film. And many more intertwined, uproarious tales about the spoiled rich to whom the competent hotel manager (Oliver Masucci) has to cater. It’s a hoot, it’s wonderfully nasty, and it gets people’s egos in a tizzy.
BRAVO, Roman – you’re showing it, somewhat hyperbolically, the way it is – so CHAPEAU!
I loved its wild humour.
(Showing only at the Cine17 – avant-premières at 22h, regular times from next week)
ET PLUS SI AFFINITÉS ***1/2 (vo French)
If you’re looking for a lighthearted film to get you away from the awful world news around us, this is your film – hilarious, intelligent, unpredictable.
Xavier and Sophie have been married for a quarter century and it feels like it between them. They live in a beautiful apartment in Paris, have an adult daughter and get along as a couple. Yet the spark is gone and their character differences are beginning to create tensions.
We get to know them in one night when Sophie has invited their upstairs neighbours to dinner. The whole film is a huis clos set in their flat during this dinner which the uptight Xavier is not at all happy about. Apparently these younger neighbours have been making a great deal of amorous noise most nights and Xavier is wondering if they should broach the subject. Both the problem and the amusement is that much comes out between the foursome during the evening. I’ll let you discover all that for yourselves.
One could say more French and sexy than this you couldn’t get, yet the film is actually based on a previous 2020 film from Spain called “Sentimental” (“The People Upstairs”), which had a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Nevertheless, here directors Olivier Ducrey and Wilfried Meance have created their own brilliant gem of a psychological sex comedy that never veers into vulgarity but just observes the different desires and hangups of its four characters with clever dialogue and comportment.
The excellent duo of Isabelle Carré and Bernard Campan has won awards for their multi-faceted portrayals, ably supported by Julia Faure and Pablo Pauly as the other, racier couple. The whole thing is a delight.
By the way, the title of the film is a phrase used on dating sites to mean ‘more, if there’s an affinity…’
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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