Reviewed this week: MY BEST FRIEND (MON MEILLEUR AMI): ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2007/05/13 > Reviewed this week: MY BEST FRIEND (MON MEILLEUR AMI)

Reviewed this week: MY BEST FRIEND (MON MEILLEUR AMI)
Sunday, May 13, 2007 - Reviewed by Helen Boylan
Directed by Patrice Leconte, At selected cinemas until May 31, cert 12A

This light buddy film tells the story of Francois (Daniel Auteuil), a middle-aged antiques dealer who values things over people. At his birthday dinner one night, conversation turns to the subject of Francois having no friends.

His business partner Catherine (Julie Gayet) makes a bet that, if Francois can’t present a best friend within ten days, he must sell an expensive ancient Greek vase he bought at an auction.

Over the subsequent days, as Francois scrounges around for threads of commonality between himself and people in his past, he overlooks a connection that develops with a taxi driver called Bruno (Dany Boon).

In the vein of most French cinema, Patrice Leconte (The Hairdresser’s Husband) directs an achingly stylish production. Most of his characters here sashay around beautiful Parisian apartments, stairwells and streets with chic.

For the sake of critical balance, many holes can be picked in this film. It peaks in the first 20 minutes or so, and plods along for much of the rest. The outcome of Bruno’s and Francois’s relationship is predictable, and there are scenarios, relationships and plot developments that are unconvincing.

But, despite flaws, it’s difficult not to get sucked into this heartwarming take on friendship.

Rating: ***

THEATRE: CRUEL AND TENDER

By Martin Crimp, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Until May 19

British playwright Martin Crimp’s adaptation of Sophocles’ The Trachiniae makes for an intriguing if uneven snapshot of the effects of modern war.

Crimp – who also wrote Attempts On Her Life – has cherry-picked elements from Sophocles’ drama and cobbled them into a comment on the war on terror. The production has strong performances, but the play adds up to less than the sum of its parts, a fault mostly due to the script.

The tale was originally the story of the hero Heracles, the new wife he seizes in battle and the reaction of his spurned wife at home.

Crimp’s modernisation of it is visually powerful, but its political message fails to make an impression.

The heroine is Amelia, an indolent wife isolated in her luxurious home with only her servants – her housekeeper, beautician and physiotherapist, in a sexed-up version of the traditional Greek chorus – for company. She has sent her only son, James (Conrad Kemp), to Africa to search for her husband, the nameless ‘‘General’’, who has been missing for months.

The only exterior figure is Richard (Liam Carney), an oleaginous politician and Amelia’s former lover. Then a catalyst arrives in the form of Laela, the girl the General has seized as a spoil of war. Laela arrives with a nameless little boy and soon begins to usurp Amelia’s place, though mercifully things do not descend into a catfight.

Andrea Irvine’s tortured Amelia completely controls the stage in the first half, but when the General makes his entrance after the interval, even Robert O’Mahoney’s blazing, tortured performance as the broken, half-mad soldier can’t tie the story’s loose ends together.

Laela, in particular, remains a cipher of a character, despite a strong performance from Yvonne Wandera.

Crimp has sacrificed depth of character for a broad and ill-defined political message, which does a disservice to the complexity of the acting here, across the board. Annabelle Comyn’s direction is seamless, constantly maintaining the tension and threat of things unravelling.

Rating: ***

Reviewed by Elizabeth McGuane