Rendez-vous

Oh sooooo disappointing. The most helpful thing I can tell you is Don't Bother! Sure, the acting was great, fearless etc etc. but the script was so very baaad. The writer/director et al- they just couldn't decide WHAT to do with this story. Actually, the only really interesting thing for me in this film- is the performance of Lambert Wilson doing a young Jeremy Irons.'I'm sure my film experiences of him are stunted but I have only known him as a comedic/semi-comedic actor.He does a very riveting job as the tortured soul here. But still, there are so many good films directed by Techine or starring these actors; just skip this one.

Rendez-vous is a beautiful, sexy, art-film. It won several prestigious international awards and is critically acclaimed. Juliette Binoche is completely uninhibited and gives a brave, fearless performance where she bares herself completely...both emotionally and physically.

Thus, this film is not intended for the immature. Those with childish minds who cannot handle looking at a beautiful woman's body (such as feminists or other philistines) are advised too avoid this. Another reviewer called it "pointless drivel" and complained about the "gratuitous nudity". If seeing a woman's vagina is too much for the immature mind of that viewer to handle, him and his kind should avoid high-art cinema such as this. His kind would be better served watching gay-porn garbage, loosely disguised as a "comedy", such as "Bruno". That type of film is more suited for those misandric simpletons who prefer looking at male genitalia. Those who appreciate complex, beautiful art and appreciate the female form will enjoy this.

Nina (Juliette Binoche) moves to Paris and she becomes the love interest of three very different men and has tumultuous concurrent relationships with each. Multiple plot and character lines develop from this. This movie will challenge you and you'll find yourself pondering some of the scenes days later. Highly recommended.

Juliette Binoche was only 21 when she made this film, but it was her eighth film. This is really a pointless, offensive, and ridiculous film for which the director was of course awarded Best Director at Cannes, and Binoche was awarded a Best Actress Cesar (which proves how crazy judges can be, and how perverted they are as well). I imagine Juliette Binoche must be hideously embarrassed to think this terrible film of her cavorting around naked in compromising situations is still available on DVD. It is harder than soft porn, and purely gratuitous in its graphic displays. Binoche was not at all interesting at the age of 21, and all of her fascinating qualities developed later when she began to look like a woman: as a girl, she was seriously dull. I do not mean to say that Binoche did a bad job of acting; on the contrary, she did very well, but why bother? This film is a wet dream fantasy of a sick director of the 'let's get the lead actress's kit off quick' school of thought. Everybody in the film is obsessed with sex, death, and all those really new things none of us has ever thought about, so we need the wacko director to remind us. Why didn't he just make a sexy vampire film and be less affected and pompous? If you want horror, death, and sex, there are always vampires to turn to. Instead, we have here a lot of twaddle about Shakespeare and other mock-profundities. How absurd this all is. Binoche ought to get her kit back on. Really, there was no point in taking it off. On the other hand, there is a Cesar for the mantlepiece, I suppose. But was it worth it? This is a film only for psychotics.

It is hard to figure out the point of Andre Techine's "Rendez-Vous" (1985). I suppose it can be officially classified under "Romance", but there is no romance or love or even erotic heat in it. The characters are stereotypes: the nerdy good boy, the aggressive bad boy, the slutty girl with a heart of gold, the wise enigmatic mentor. Furthermore, the film is set in Paris but shot in a curiously claustrophobic manner. A young Juliette Binoche bares all, and Jean-Louis Trintignant, entering the picture in the second half, brings some gravitas to the screen, but overall it is a hollow, uninteresting film. ** out of 4.

Rendez-vous (1985) was co-written and directed by André Téchiné. It's a vehicle for the now-famous Juliette Binoche.

Juliette Binoche, at age 21, already radiated the star power that became apparent to everyone in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Unfortunately, her contributions to this film were pretty much limited to her luminous skin and her distinctive beauty. This distinctive beauty is fully and totally displayed. (Binoche is not shy.)

The film involves four men who swirl around Binoche like the proverbial moths around a flame. One is a wimp, one is a creep, and one carries a straight razor. (Don't ask). The fourth is Jean-Louis Trintignant. The other three were all young, and were probably happy to work with a well-known director like Téchiné. One can only guess why an established star like Trintignant accepted this role.

Binoche is lovely, especially when dressed in period costume as Shakespeare's Juliet. (She looks like Vivian Leigh in "Gone with the Wind.") However, she is miscast as the wide-eyed young ingénue from the provincial town of Toulouse. Binoche was born in Paris, and she just can't carry off a role in which she is supposed to have just arrived in town to "live her life." Another weak point is her reading of some of Juliet's lines at an casting audition. No actor could read lines that badly. (High school kids trying out for the senior play don't read lines that badly.)

The movie will work well on DVD, which is the way I saw it. If you love La Binoche, and you've seen every other film in which she's starred, I guess you'll have to see this one for the sake of completion. If you haven't seen all of her later films, rent one of those instead.