Alice - Mein Leben als Escort

Here I am two years on writing a review. A seriously worthy one. This film is hands down one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in the last two years, and I've seen hundreds.

Having nothing to watch I put this on. I don't speak French so had the chore of handling subtitles throughout it's length. Well it was a roller coaster ride of excitement, suspense, laughter, sadness, awe, disbelief and enjoyment. It was almost perfectly blended into a tight tale of despair, personal growth and becoming.

The screenplay was excellent, as is the direction and general production. The acting is nothing short of superb and the lead. "Emilie Piponnier" should get an Oscar for her performance, or at the very least the French equivalent. To be fair, all the performances are good, and I was totally immersed in this movie to the point where I watched another French film after just to prolong the moment.

Ok its not perfect. One development in the story niggled me as soon as it occurred, and for a film so good I'm surprised the writer chose this avenue for the plot since there were so many other possible scenarios that would have worked more believably and effectively that the one chosen. I'll describe it like this - If I left my husband having found out he was a dirty cop, and I then decided to pull bank jobs to survive or stay financially viable. I am NOT going to ask my husband to babysit my child! Not for any number of excellent reasons the situation presents. That is just asking for trouble, and a little ridiculous if I'm honest. Babysitters are not Truffles and what would otherwise have been absolute perfection was a tad tainted by this development.

Additionally, the sexual encounters in the movie are somewhat... I think 'Cartoonish' is the best way to describe them. I'm not sure if the writer/director has done any real research into high end escorts, but I think they have confused the establishment with one catering for men interested in bondage, or perhaps the 'M' in S&M. The notion that the clientele for high end escorts primarily consist of sexually inept momma's boys with low esteem that all come to fruition at the mere sight of a woman in lingerie is a far stretch from reality, but I'm going to give a little leeway here since some 'poetic license' is needed for the film to work.

In spite of these short comings I'm giving the film 8/10, because, I still enjoyed it so much. Besides, it's fantastic production well worth seeing, and all this coming from a guy who appreciates a good film, but would normally skip a film of this genre and not given it a chance in the normal course of things. Prejudice can be a hindrance to enjoyment.

Astonishing feature debut by Australian director Josephine Mackerras, seen at SXSW (with an Q&A with the director, the film was the winner of Narrative Feature Competition at SXSW): Alice (a remarkable performance by first-time actress Emilie Piponnier) is happily married with a caring husband and a sweet little boy. Suddenly, her husband disappears, leaving her with her son, no money and a heavy mortgage on their apartment. She finds out, her husband was living a secret second life, spending all of her money on escort girls. Out of desperation and the perspective of becoming homeless, she starts working as a high-end escort girl herself. She befriends with a fellow escort girl, earns enough money to keep her flat, and gains a sense of independence and self-determination she never had before in her marriage. - The movie is absolutely stunning, a fascinating story that kept me captivated all through the end, beautifully shot, and an highly atmospheric soundtrack. In many parts, it is extremely funny (minor spoiler: e.g. the first scene in the hotel), sometimes horrifying (the phone call with Alice's mother). Probably shot with a small budget, the movie looks really expensive--the art direction, the camerawork, the soundtrack are skilfully set up. Emilie Piponnier impressively plays the role of a young woman finding her inner voice. Strongly recommended!

I've never tryed to go with an escort.

Well, this movie inspired me to :-) Very deep, realistic, awesome actress, good story.

Deeply recommended!

Do not be fooled by the poster (or the image one can see here with the title) - because this is not a titilating affair ... this is not here to excite you (pun intended), but rather tell a story. Actually one of the first ... let's call it sexual encounters might bring memories to some from their teenage escapedes ... remembering that there was almost no fun involved and a lot of things that went wrong. Only good thing here: patience that has developed over the years .. and luck to some degree.

Because this is about escort and not depraved acts. So if you are into a story of a struggling woman and her not reliable husband ... and their kid ... well you are in the right place. Again just don't expect this to give you excitement in a different way than it actually does. This is pure drama ... and a good one at that. Well played, well structured ... pacing may not be your thing, but it chooses to go this way ...

I almost didn't watch this, especially because it was labeled a drama AND a comedy. The synopsis sounded pretty serious, and if they tried to play it for laughs I probably would not have liked it. But I read the other reviews here that said it was NOT a comedy at all. And they were all right. This movie is not a comedy at all and it the entire film is a (very good) drama.

Alice is a different take on prostitution movies and the three lead actors are all outstanding and all of the supporting roles are excellent. The script, cinematography, editing and production design were top notch. For a movie involving prostitution there's very little explicit sex...I actually think there should have been a little more, since the contrast between being a mother and being a call girl should have been played up a bit more.

One quibble: Alice should have used a nanny service instead of resorting to allowing her awful husband to babysit. In a city as large as Paris, there must be many resources that would not have cost a lot of money that cater to families (and single mothers) that have hectic, weird schedules and need to arrange for babysitting on short notice. Alice's timelines for such arrangements could have been negotiated at the very beginning of her relationships with her management.

But that said, the movie was nicely paced and the characters evolved in a realistic way. The ending was a bit far fetched, but I won't add that to any quibbles, because it was still justified.