Les gazelles

Marie is with Eric since high school. They decide to purchase their first apartment together. But the 30 years loan required to finance it, which in a way is a mirror to the long term commitment they're making, ends up frightening out Marie. And all of a sudden, she decides to leave Eric. "Les Gazelles" lets us follow Marie's first steps in her new single life, where she has to learn the codes and the rules.

If this topic clearly lacks originality, the characters (more particularly Marie - Camille Chamoux and all the female supporting roles) are really touching. The story is treated in a modern fashion (occasional trash and awkward talks) and we end up really suffering for Marie while she goes through the story. And it's the key to appreciate this movie : don't expect a pure comedy. Instead, imagine a very funny and long-lost friend who ends up telling you all about her recently shattered love life.

This film has possibly the most inventive opening credits I have ever seen. The cast names are seen in a closeup of the screen of an I-phone as a girl flicks through it. The title is seen painted as a large graffito on a wall on a Paris street. And every credit is shown in a new and dazzlingly inventive way. Whoever did the opening credits really deserves an Oscar. But then things get worse. The film is quickly boring and depressing, with a lead character (played by Camille Chamoux, who wrote the screenplay) who is seen buying a flat jointly with her partner of 15 years and then that evening she gets out of bed, rushes into the street and leaves him to pursue a more pleasurable life. Big mistake! I fear that neurotic, hysterical, vacillating and self-indulgent people are not my thing, so it did not take me long to lose patience with the film and stop watching it. There may have been a lesson at the end of it all, and doubtless it all had a point, but who wants to sit through the process of the silly woman's painful learning curve? I bought the DVD because I like Audrey Fleurot, the red-headed femme fatale of the TV series ENGRENAGES (SPIRAL in English, see my review). I wanted to see what she would be like in something else. In this film she is a wild girl who at a party in her flat not only performs a pole dance for her friends but licks the pole suggestively. Perhaps she had coated the pole with maple syrup or something, who can say. This film by director Mona Achache is deeply disappointing, considering that she made such a spectacularly brilliant and wonderful film a few years ago starring Josiane Balasko, THE HEDGEHOG (2009). Please, Mona, pull yourself together and get back on course. The attempts at comedy in this film do not work very well, and you might consider sticking to straight dramatic stories, where I feel your true talent lies.

... are really fun to watch. Audrey Fleurot especially, as the one who broke away from the pack, went to the States and had a kid. Camille Chamoux is vaguely reminiscent of Jennifer Aniston in her better moments, while Anne Brochet (who at almost 50 is too old to play a 30-something) has some good lines. Olivia Cote as Marie's boss steals every scene she's in; neurotic, demanding and with that sick dog who seems to rule over her, a little bit pathetic.