Alice et le maire

The film is engaging, it makes us want to follow the story of Alice and the mayor Théraneau. Fabrice Luchini and Anaïs Demoustier have both great performances, and it makes it hard not to be caught by them. However, if we pay attention, while there are important discussions, most (certainly not all) of the supposedly brilliant ideas proposed by Alice are actually shallow and vague slogans: neither deep as the intellectuals who are criticized, nor pratical and effective as the politicians who are labeled as insensitive or dumb. As a matter of fact, even the (recurrently repeated by several characters) dichotomy between intellectuals and politicians make little sense. The several ideas proposed by Alice are not really connected, what makes them similar to the marketing texts the two characters say to oppose. How a brilliant attack on the financialization as they wrote may be compatible with the conclusion that the solution is "to be modest"? Perhaps this is the right film with the right actors, but the script lacks enough philosophy and political science for what it intends to.

The movie genre showing political backstages is firmly established, but what does happen if the boss is Fabrice Luchini and an improbable but brilliant philosopher joins the party? Well, you'll get a thoughtful comedy with punching, suggestive dialogues and a warm look on an ending left-wing political career. And extremely vague answers.

I've enjoyed Fabrice Lucchini in a lot of movies, which is why I went to see this one. He does his usual fine job of creating a character. But the story didn't much interest me, and most of the rest of the characters were very formulaic. The speech the the mayor and his female assistant near the end of the movie was enthralling - a "why can't we have that sort of candidate" moment - but I don't know that it justified sitting through the rest of the movie.

This film creates a delightful romantic setting for two subtle characters -- Alice and Mayor, both charming -- to build a dialog on current social politics that culminates in brilliant answers to current social-economic questions without breaching the comfort of a great date-night film. Brilliant balance! Profound, deeply rewarding, beautiful, charming and cute! One of my favorite films of all time. I saw this on a plane to Paris (English subtitles) and I strongly encourage you to bring it mainstream in America, at least in the independent theater network (where Woody Allen's films go). More please!

Right from the beginning, we easily recognize the agitated, mischievous and disenchanted atmosphere of Quai d'Orsay (2013) (a lot) and L'exercice de l'État (2011) (a little) with an obvious inspiration from the universe of Éric Rohmer.

Paul Théraneau (Fabrice Luchini) is the current mayor of Lyon and in the midst of an existential crisis. He compares himself to a Formula One with an overpowered engine but out of fuel, continuing to move thanks to inertia more than anything else. He fears that his electorate notices it. He recruits in this way Alice Heimann (Anaïs Demoustier), a woman as brilliant as young and whose career is limited to professorship within the prestigious University of Oxford. She is obviously smart but her political and professional inexperience will quickly contrast with the lions' den atmosphere that reigns in the town hall of Lyon and the French Socialist Party.

Beyond the complicity that is very quickly developed between Paul and Alice, the film skillfully mixes politics (Fabrice Luchini), philosophy (Anaïs Demoustier), communication (Antoine Reinartz), tradition (Pascal Rénéric), art (Maud Wyler), friendship (Alexandre Steiger), uselessness (Nora Hamzawi), ... Despite some slight snags, the result is fundamentally successful. I really appreciated the obvious quality of the dialogues and these excellent acting games around Fabrice Luchini.

As a synthesis: 7/8 of 10