En plein coeur

This is a film that should have been retitled "Stupid things men do for beautiful women". En plein Coeur is not a great film, but it is enjoyable and has some good moments and great characters, specially the one played by Carole Bouquet, a very good, strong female character, probably the best aspect of this film. Virginie Ledoyen is a beautiful and talented actress, and she proves it here with a good performances, even if the character is less than likeable.

This 1998 film was just released in Singapore (Apr 2000) probably due to Virginia Ledoyen & Guillaume Canet presence in The Beach (the crushing disappointment from the Trainspotting Trio). Anyway, this show stood out due to the presence of Carole Bouquet. What a woman! She commands the scene she is in by her trademark ice cool and chic demeanour. Granted I was more captivated by the way she looked than her acting, which, honestly, was not bad but not staggering. Virginia Ledoyen was ravishing, naturally but if I was the husband, sigh.... I guess there won't be a story then!

A tantalising tale of love, lust, betrayal and jealousy, En plein coeur amasses to nothing more than a frustrating folly, more engaged with the grandeur of its own concept than producing any real substance.

A famous Parisian lawyer (Gerard Lanvin) becomes involved with a delinquent shoplifter (Virginie Ledoyen) following her attempt to rob a jewellers with a toy gun. Entranced by her passion and life, the lawyer leaves his chic wife, the timelessly elegant Carole Bouquet, to embark upon an affair so devoid of emotion, that the viewer must wonder whether the director himself needs an alibi.

The cast turn in adequate performances, although special mention should be made to Carole Bouquet's effortlessly aristocratic character who provides all moments of emotion. Simultaneously innocent and wise to her husbands impending betrayal, she forms an intriguing character, too frequently overlooked in favour of the disjointed and superficial Virginie Ledoyen.

En plein coeur is guilty of all the cliches that is normally to be found in North American film. On this occasion it is a French director who believes you should feel moved by the force of the leads passion when he tells his wife he's leaving her for a woman who makes him "feel young again." For me, there is no irony here, polishing and carefully arranging each cliche does not merit praise, only disappointment.

This is not an un-entertaining French thriller (which isn't QUITE the same thing as being an entertaining French thriller). The story involves a beautiful pick-pocket (Virginie Ledoyen) who steals the wallet from the coat of a lawyer (Michael Lavin) while she and a Moroccan friend are crashing an art party that happens to be for the lawyer's wife (Carole Bouquet). Later she and her friend are unable to pay their rent and decide to hold up a jewelry store with a toy gun. Naturally, this plan goes horribly awry and the pick-pocket finds herself in need of a lawyer, so she calls the guy whose wallet she stole (she didn't have a phone book, I guess). She has no money, but he he agrees to take the case pro boner--er, pro bono--after she shows him her panties. The movie gets pretty predictable for awhile (Will he get her off? Will she get him off?). But there are a few interesting twists in store, some involving a young bartender (Guillame Canet)who perjures himself to give Ledoyen's character an alibi and is very jealous of her relationship with the lawyer.

French movies and Hollywood movies are very different, but one thing they have in common is that they always cast the most beautiful people in the world, even if it sometimes threatens the plausibility of the whole story. It's hard to believe a girl that looks like Ledoyen would ever have to pay her own rent, and if she needed money all she would have to do to is ask just about any guy and he'd gladly give it to her with just the vaguest hope of sex sometime in the indeterminate future. The actress playing the wife meanwhile, Carole Bouquet, is a former Bond girl and ex-wife of Gerard Depardieu. Of course, that doesn't mean her husband wouldn't possibly cheat on her, but it's hard to have much sympathy for him when he does. (If you're unfamiliar with these French actresses, imagine a guy married to an older woman who looks like Sela Ward having an affair with a more voluptuous version of Natalie Portman). Even Guillame Canet, while it's not hard to imagine him being obsessed with Ledoyen, would certainly have A LOT of other female prospects.

That's not to say, necessarily, the acting isn't good. Lavin and Bouquet are quite good. Ledoyen is probably the least talented of her generation of French actresses--Ludivine Sagnier, Isilde Lebesco, Marie Gillain, Roxane Mesquida, Vahina Giocante--but she is certainly not a bad actress by any means, and she is probably the most famous outside of France thanks to her appearance as Leonardo DeCaprio's love interest in "The Beach". Canet, meanwhile, was also in "The Beach", but I haven't seen him much since then. This movie is implausible at times and predictable at others. It won't change your life, but I'm sure you won't regret having watched it either.

First of all, the story. It is as implausible as unoriginal, the entire idea of this movie screams drama and it's not at all entertaining. It's bizarre to see events of this magnitude of stupidity in such settings, usually it happens in reality shows or in some soap dramas and as a filler sequence between something more meaningful. Yet, there it is: an entire movie from a soap opera subplot. There is no intrigue, events are very predictable and the only saving grace of the movie could have been the excellent casting... But no, actors are doing such a great job that the story looks even worse.

Carole Bouquet is an absolute star of this movie and pleasure to watch, which makes the whole experience quite painful: her character doesn't deserve this treatment, not even close. She is also the only reason to ever consider watching the movie, she is that good and steals the show completely.

There are pacing problems and some sequences are negative in value, but the ending really takes the cake. It is as anticlimactic as it could be and movie should have been cut short couple of minutes earlier to make it fair.