vonseux

As a Houellebecq enthusiast I saw this movie with great expectations. Unfortunately, it is not as enjoyable as the movie Elementarteilchen - which is colorful, beautiful and bitter-sweet funny even as it deals with the same subjects - the voice-overs on this movie is boring as hell and there's little to no action on screen. It's more a guided reading trought Houellebecq text than a real movie. The actor playing Our Hero is not ironic, intelligent and cynical as the character on the book, he too looks boring as hell. 2 hours of this movie isn't worth reading 15minutes of any chapter on the book. The tone is all wrong. Avoid.

I think this movie have accomplished something very rare. It's an adaptation that respects the spirit of the novel but doesn't follow it blindly. That's very welcome because Houellebecque is notorious for his polemical discussions, something that would be very hard to fit on a movie or entertainment television. The Movie, then, avoids any major discussion of society, individualism, decadence, and the scientific fiction that closes the novel. It keeps things simple and offers viewers only the "story" of the two brothers, keeping the more hardcore stuff on the books. Photography is very colorful, casting is excellent. The new ending is beautiful. At the bottom, maybe the best introduction to Houellebecque's world.