Marius et Jeannette

Maybe, the simplicity is the main virtue of this film mixing nostalgia, slices of ordinary lives, fair humor, serious problems, motherhood, romance, loneliness, addictions and honest perspectives about neighbors, their common existence, religion, sexual life, boyfriends and dreams of children, God and lies.

Short, a film for love it.

For acting, dialogues, atmosphere, narrator voice and something profound moving, escaping by definitions.

This movie kind of reminded me of a cross between "Life is Sweet" (a humorous examination of the lower-middle class), "The Bridges of Madison County" (an examination of how middle aged people actually continue to have libidos and emotions), and a random French romantic love farce.

The director tries to give this film a political slant, showing the perils of capitalism in favor of socialism, and dedicates this film "to all of the workers of the world." Ignore it. Focus instead on the characters, most of whom are people much like people you have met in your life, with French sensibilities. The love story between the main characters is basically an excuse to get to know this small community of neighbors and show how they interact.

This is not one of the great films of all time, but I enjoyed it. It was a pleasant way to spend a little under two hours.

Marius and Jeanette, a couple of life's walking wounded from the low rent side of the tracks, get it together with the help of their Marseilles neigbourhood. They meet when Jeanette tries to steal paint for her grotty flat from the demolition site guarded by Marius. Watching the film was for the most part like watching paint dry, but it was a pretty finish. The snail's pace seems to be a feature of French romantic comedy, even a working class one like this. Perhaps it's so all the minor characters can tell us their oddball philosphies so we can marvel at how un-hung up about life (and therefore how truly French) they all are. The film plugs a vague feelgood socialism and makes the point that while you don't have to be an idiot to vote National Front (le Pen's neo Nazi party) it helps (the dumbest of the neighbours is a supporter).

Worth seeing? Yes, if you don't mind the slow pace. The people are ordinary but interesting and the location authentic. Slice of life stuff, but certainly cheaper than a trip to Marseilles.

I'm not sure why this movie garnered such hostile reviews on here. I gather it was assigned in some class and that the students did not like it. I also gather that it was presented with a Marxist perspective, which is unfortunate.

This movie doesn't have much in the way of social commentary. It is the unremarkable story of a group of individuals in a poor neighborhood in Marseilles. They are all basically likable, which works for awhile. By the second half of the movie, though, there don't seem to be enough ideas to justify going on. The ending seems like a made-for-TV movie.

Not a movie worth going out of your way for. Pleasant, but, I suspect, at least for me, almost instantly forgettable.

This movie is for those who want to believe that life can be pleasant even if one is a broke divorced unemployed mother of two without prospects as long as one believes. In this case the requisite belief is not in god or in life everlasting but in love & some communitarian evolution of romanticized communism. Our once deserted and once widowed unemployed heroine finds love amongst the deconstructing ruins of a cement factory with its emotionally and "physically" crippled security guard. The film is not unrelieved tendentious reality though the only action is a rather bloody bar room brawl from which the protagonists escape drunk but without injury. The one great myth that deserves debunking is that a dozen people in a third of a dozen seperate households can live cheek by jowl in a fading tenement, sharing all intimacies and still like each other. I was somewhat mean in giving it a 6 but it sure isn't worth the 8.7 average rating that prompted me to see it. The French must have different eyes.