Le Deuxième Acte

Brilliant Quentin Dupieux makes fun of cinema (his own métier) as he did before with theatre in the excellent «Yannick». And he is lucky enough to have a superb cast to give life to five actors who are working in a film, who constantly move from fiction to reality again and again, and who create a quite faithful image of all the vices (above all) and virtues of the people who make films. For them and the audience it is a hilarious and frenetic comedy, in which the story they are filming intersect with the lives of the actors, seen in a three-level game: the role they play in the film, their life as actors within the film, and as professional actors in real life.

In short, a man (Louis Garrel) asks his best friend (Raphäel Quenard) for help in seducing a woman (Léa Seydoux) who is stalking him and for whom he has absolutely no feelings. To do so, the man brings his friend to the meeting he has with the woman at Le Deuxième Acte restaurant, without knowing that she has brought her father (Vincent Lindon) to introduce him as her future partner. The quartet is joined by the restaurant waiter, played by an extra (Manuel Guillot), who suffers a panic attack and cannot properly pour wine into their glasses without his hand stopping shaking. Between these situations and the reality of the actors inside and outside the film, the events flow. Lindon receives a call to act with Paul Thomas Anderson, the actor who plays the extra has similar self-esteem problems as his character, actors turn out to be the reverse of what they pretend to be. And so it naturally flows this irreverent comedy from one of the classic iconoclast filmmakers of world cinema. A very enjoyable film.

Quentin Dupieux is a director who makes weird movies. You either hate or love his movies. Personally, he's a hit or miss for me as he has made some movies I really like but at the same time, movies I don't fully like. This new meta comedy that explores interesting themes of reality is an interesting concept and while the performances and concept is good, the poor approach, direction, and uninteresting characters doesn't do much justice.

Dupieux's direction on trying to make this a meta commentary on movies, reality and people is interesting. Breaking fiction between reality isn't new to discuss but a good concept. But with the humor and dialogue feeling pretty forced and insufferable, it causes many moments to feel as it's nothing, and causes the characters to be pretty unbearable. It thinks it's clever but it's not, it feels painted, thin, and insufferable. I understand the intent and what Dupieux is wanting to approach, but unfortunately it really doesn't work.

The performances from the cast are all talented actors I love and they are doing their best. There are some decent long take moments that were a bit good. However as a whole, it's a tiresome of a movie. No doubt Quentin Dupieux is an interesting filmmaker but this one isn't great.

The movies from the director " Quentin Dupieux " are still different compared to the others movie that we used to see from the industry well I think so I'm not a client from this kind of cinema you have to like this style if you want to love these projects but " The second act " it's not my cup of tea !!!

Firts to all the pitch it's very interesting and I was too exiting to find out the rest of script but for me the main idea who talking about is lost during during the process of script, it's too bad that the movie it's a movie in movie directed by AI and just a real story will be great...

The fact that 2 friends find an solution about the matter of one of them will be great to talking but unfortunately the movie don't talk about that finally...cause it's a movie in movie even if this is staid out finally.... Some scene are funny but not a lot neither...

The acting was very good, did so long lines it's not easy I don't if this is the improvisation or real lines learned but the acting was enough good l, mainly Raphaël Quenard still great in everything !!!

The directing as I said it's not my cup of tea, it's not a great directing with good shoots, but it is on purpose and this is the style from the director...but I'm not fan of that !!!

Not soundtrack unfortunately...

The movie "Yannick " was great and better than this one in Medium-length film, this movie seem too long cause sometimes the script it's too boring !!!

Quentin Dupieux's movie opening this year's Cannes is a movie about a movie about...a movie? This is all typical Dupieux, questioning our reality in clever ways, and I think everything comes together rather well here.

We follow two pairs of actors heading towards a meeting at a diner, with each breaking character and the fourth wall ever more often, generating layers of reality that are usually at odds with one another. Questions are asked overtly and implicitly: does anything matter, how do we construct our reality and what about a dash of almost present-day futurism?

And to top it all off, the movie ends on one of the more meta fourth wall breaks I've ever seen, a bit of a mind-scratcher that cleverly frames the syntax of movie-making.

I think the ultimate claim of LDA is that the one undeniable real thing is what we feel. Not in "feelings are facts" kind of way, but rather in the effect we can have on other people, whether seen on unseen, quantifiable or not. 7.

What a waste of energy, a waste of resources, a waste of time, a waste of talent. Everything crumbles under the weight of the writing which is so full of clichés one thinks this too is also part of the joke. It is a film within a film whose plot never takes off, whose originality wears thin 10 minutes into the film. It is thankfully 1 hour 20 minutes, an hour too long. I must be in the minority here as the film opened the Festival de Cannes this year. The Second Act was filmed in the course of a little over two weeks and I found myself wondering how, and why, it was chosen to open the film festival.