La vie moderne

...boasts, we are told, eight million stories. Here we get three of them. Frankly the attraction for me was Isabelle Huppert, the finest French actress currently working, who is incapable of turning in a bad performance even when the script and direction push her to the limits. Actually this entry is not half so bad as some of the stuff she has, for reasons best known to herself, deigned to appear in. There's not a great deal, if anything, that's new and or unique about lonliness, isolation and feeling extremes of these conditions when in the midst of a large city teeming with humanity so it is not surprising that this movie does not break any new ground. If you have a penchant for exploring the human condition by peering down the business end of a microscope focussed on three disparate individuals and don't mind spending two hours doing so then check this one out, if you're curious to see how much Huppert's daughter resembles her physically - a lot - then still check it out. Either way you shouldn't be too disappointed. 6/10

It's not much of The modern life we see here but The modern way to redirect a movie containing some aspects of not so modern life. When we see on TV reality-shows, people disposed to talk about their lives as it were movies, I can't help but thinking that what they are not disposed to talk could really be a great movie. That's exactly what happens here. Laurence Ferreira Barbosa portrays a nice movie with three tales, apparently not connected, that tells much about the loneliness of human being when they are confronted with their expectations and the true nature of their desires, forcing them to stand alone in their own speech. Fredéric Pierrot is deliciously funny and the young Lolita Chammah, probably will be following the steps of her mother Isabelle Huppert, but it is this last actress that fills the screen for she's probably the best in France. "Normal people are nothing special" reported Laurence in her debut-film. Well, I think they are!

It made me think a little to "Magnolia", the difference is that there is no extraordinary coïncidence and only three characters. They have three very different lives and when they meet... Claire, played by the wonderful Isabelle Huppert, who has a quite normal life in a small city, she can't have children. She comes to Paris to see a doctor. Marguerite is a Teenager. She feels "different". Jacques is an ex-alcoholic, unemployed, left by his wife. He meets a strange girl who asks him a strange thing... I guess the conclusion of that movie is to tell us that the 6 billion human beeings living on our planet have 6 billion different stories... I appreciated, maybe I'll forget this movie quickly but it is objectively good.

According to me this film is a shame for the French people. OK, there are three good actors (Frédéric Pierrot, Isabelle Huppert and introducing her daughter Lolita Chammah) but the screenplay is absolutely terrific. This film is boring and absolutely not charming. Don't watch this film, but watch good French films like ''Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien'', ''Le goût des autres'' or ''Kennedy et moi''. Laurence Ferreira Barbosa had directed two very good films, ''Les gens normaux n'ont rien d'exceptionnel'' and ''J'ai horreur de l'amour'', but this one is a shame.