Et soudain, tout le monde me manque

Mélanie Laurent seemed so fresh and charming in "Beginners" that we thought we'd give this one a try. Here she plays a character, Juliette, so hard-workingly quirky and self-absorbed that very little charm shows through; Michel Blanc is more appealing as Eli, her neglectful but repentant garmento father, but writer-director Jennifer Devoldère's Parisian version of Jewish humor seems pale and derivative compared to just about any of our own homegrown varieties (not sure why the subtitlist translated "schmuck" as "schwanz," btw). The comic fantasy aspects of the script seem too silly and contrived to bear any emotional weight; students of brand-name humor in the Eurozone may appreciate the feeble riffs on Starbucks vs. Illy, Crocks, Ebay and Dr. Dre, others not so much. Helpful suggestion—"Beginners" turns up on cable from time to time and is available from Netflix on Blu-ray and DVD.

We expect love stories to be about a man and a woman. But sometimes it's about a father and daughter. Ok, I know technically, it's still a man and a woman. But let's be real, who wants to think their daughter is a woman. "The Day I Saw Your Heart" is about the moment when a father wakes up to this realization - she's not his little Disney princess anymore, but a woman with desires. To deal with it, the dad goes about trying to vet all of her conquests. The sincere, earnest, charming and funny performance of Michel Blanc strikes a perfect balance between the comic befuddled father and the dad determined that the apple of his eye will not throw away her value on empty sex. It grabs your heart with humor and sincerity. If you're jaded and cynical, you just won't get it. But if you know what it's like to realize your baby has grown up and there's nothing you can't do about it, or what it's like to deal with your parents freaking out that you're a sexual being(!), well it's one hell of a ride.

This is a movie from the heart. Anyone who had a good father unable to openly express his love will see much of their own relationship reflected in the father/daughter dynamic portrayed. Perhaps more common to all, the film is a warm reminder about opening our hearts to those around us. This deeply touching story was well balanced with humor. I wholeheartedly recommend this film.

Incidentaly, the soundtrack "Aurora" by A.Cohen made an outstanding contribution to the film's story telling. I notice it was not in the original soundtrack, which leads me to believe the soundtrack had been revised. Much for the better, though. Kudos!!

The French film "Et soudain tout le monde me manque" (2011) was shown in the United States as "The Day I Saw Your Heart." It was co-written and directed by Jennifer Devoldère.

This is a movie that is billed as a dramatic comedy, but it just didn't work for me at either level. Mélanie Laurent stars as Justine, the most beautiful and least responsible Xray technician in France. We are supposed to find it adorable when she takes multiple x-rays of a man to whom she's attracted, and then uses the images to produce x-ray art. (There actually is an art form that uses X-rays, but presumably not at the risk of radiation exposure to patients.)

"She just broke up with her boyfriend, so she's sleeping on her sister's couch." Maybe the plot needed Justine to have no place to live, but the explanation is not funny or dramatic.

Meanwhile, we are supposed to accept the plot device that Justine's father truly loves his children, but never took the time or made the effort to tell them so. Now he hangs out with all of Justine's former boyfriends. He makes a suggestion to his pregnant wife that is truly awful, and that ends up with him sleeping on the couch. (It's a couch-sleeping kind of family.)

It's true that the family is Jewish, but I didn't feel that their Jewishness had any bearing on the plot. That's why I was surprised to find the film as part of a Jewish Film Festival. The festival booklet says the movie "charmed our entire screening committee." I guess it just didn't charm me.

We saw the film at the Little Theatre in Rochester, as part of the fine Rochester Jewish Film Festival. (OK--we didn't like this one, but most of the movies were great.) It will work well on DVD, if you choose to see it. However, I would suggest that you'd do better with another, much better, French dramatic comedy, Paris-Manhattan (2012), also shown at the RJFF.

I can't understand how this kind of movie achieves to find money to get done. As usual, it focuses on the dull, boring lives of a bourgeois Parisian family as there can't seem to be other choices for characters, stories or locations in actual french production. In addition, our french cinema seeks now to copy also the worst of American movies with their disgusting blue / orange cinematography! Maybe the producers tried to cash of the new star Melanie Laurent but thus girl seems really cold, sophisticated and thus not very cool. My motivation to watch it was Geraldine but she has a very little part here. However she has her usual cheeky humor. In conclusion, it's totally uninteresting and ugly, so if you don't have the definition of a stinker, i don't know how to write it!