Woody Allen likes telling tales. It’s what made his stand-up comedy units so distinctive. He didn’t merely recite a string of jokes (though he’s a masterful joke author); he instructed a narrative and punctuated it with hilarious one-liners. He clearly nonetheless enjoys the method of inventing characters and placing them by way of their paces. It occurs that his newest effort was made in Paris and options French actors talking of their native tongue…however it’s not shocking that the narrative, which offers with a fraught conjugal relationship, was concocted by the identical man who made Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point, and Blue Jasmine.
His heroine, a younger and exquisite lady (Lou de Laâge), bumps into an previous buddy (Niels Schneider) she hasn’t seen since highschool. He confesses that he at all times had a crush on her and persuades her to affix him for a drink… then a lunch…after which one other lunch. She hides these trysts from her husband (Melvil Poupaud), a affluent businessman with a possessive streak. Allen embroiders this seemingly easy premise with a collection of expansive particulars that dare us to query every character’s values and choices as they navigate the winding street that lays forward of them.
Chance and circumstance are the important thing elements of Coup de Chance, which interprets as “stroke of luck.” If his protagonist was fortunately married she may not agree to satisfy up along with her onetime schoolmate. If her partner was not so controlling her more and more suspicious conduct may not pique his curiosity. If her mom (Valérie Lemercier) wasn’t a welcome presence in her son-in-law’s swell condo the entire matter would possibly resolve itself. That’s what makes Allen such tale-spinner: he units up conditions that draw us in and casts the best actors to deliver these characters to life.
The celebrated cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who has collaborated with Allen on 5 earlier options, ensures that these actors and their settings are handsomely shot. But I miss the times when Dick Hyman supplied Woody Allen movies with splendidly suitable scores. I don’t thoughts “needle drops” however the director makes use of Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island” and the Modern Jazz Quartet’s “Bags’ Groove” a couple of instances too many.
Would anybody pay explicit consideration to a French import about love and deception with out well-known stars if Woody Allen’s title weren’t hooked up to it? Perhaps not, however since that is his work—recognizably so—and it reveals a positive hand guiding the proceedings, it’s price seeing, and marking as his fiftieth movie. I, for one, am trying ahead to his subsequent.