Au plus près du paradis

I really liked this film...the second time I watched it. I recommend a second viewing. Allow yourself just to enjoy it. I'm a film student and I had the good fortune of being assigned Deneuve's later work for my actor study. I watched this picture after seeing several of her well-known "masterworks" such as Indochine, Place Vendome, Ma Saison Preferee, and Les Voleurs. Growing up around film, I had the "Belle de Jour" Deneuve imprinted on my mind. Seeing this film changed that. In truth, this film is rather weak and predictable but it is worth watching just for Deneuve who shows us the other side of the "ice queen". She is quirky, dreamy, and often uncomfortable. Aging beautifully in my opinion, this film allows her to play sides of the human she normally does not touch. Toni Marshall wrote the piece for her and it is truly a homage and a joy to behold. Loved the incorporation of modern art as well. William Hurt seems miscast and slightly off his game, easily attributable to the horrible events of 9/11 that left the whole set distraught. He still manages some great one-liners. Marshall definitely has a clever idea for a film and for many viewers accustomed to foreign cinematic nuances, she will deliver. The DVD has extensive and interesting additional material. It's great to see some Paris, great to see innovative art, and wonderful to see Deneuve adopting a new element.

I just LOVED this movie. Pity I saw it on my (tiny!) TV. I wish I could have seen it in a real theater, on a huge screen. Paris, New York and Deneuve are gorgeous, dialogs and music are fantastic, and the light is beautiful. OK, the story is a little bit patchy, but who cares? You just watch this movie like you read a John Irving novel: you don't care if it's not a masterpiece, you just enjoy it! My biggest problem with this movie was the fact that they decided to dub the second half of the film. Even if Deneuve is dubbing herself quite well, it looks and sounds strange... Maybe Hurt's French wasn't good enough? For the rest, I found that all these "satellites" that evolve around Deneuve are just great: her doctor/lover who comes to check on her heart, her lesbian daughter who seems more mature than her own mother, her colleague who keeps crying because her lover left her (but who can't help noticing Fanette's beautiful shoes), her alcoholic brother whom she doesn't judge. And all these bits and pieces from Leo McCarey's 'An Affair to Remember'... The beauty of the film comes from this amazing paradox: it's a star who plays this 'weak' and lonely woman who is herself fascinated by movie stars. A beautiful present to a beautiful actress.

This film has grown on me with each repeat viewing. Deneuve is in every scene, so it helps if you are a fan, but then how can you not be? The film demonstrates on one level the connection that people can have with the cinema. How it turns a visual image into a feeling, and how also we can live vicariously through it. The director Tonie Marshall wanted Deneuve for this film, and if she had said no, the film would not have been made, it was Deneuve or nobody. This was because Marshal felt, as I have come to over the years, that Deneuve belongs to cinema. She is a legend. When you find a connection it should be kept, whether it is through an actor/actress, character particular film etc. Deneuve on screen represents film and everything about it, how she conveys feelings etc. The film sees Fannette try to find Phillipe, the love of her life from 30 years ago. She is recreating her own scene from An Affair to Remember, where they meet at the top of the Empire State Building. The film is sad at the same time as hopeful. The repeat viewings allow you to see the different layers of the film that are not apparently obvious at the 1st viewing. It can be seen as a romcom sort of film if you wish. But it is so much more. I hope you enjoy it, I am.

Catherine Deneuve and William Hurt. A letter read in rain. A decision. Painting and a photograph. A lost love, maybe a new one. A film of actors more than defined by story. Because their art resurrect old nostalgies, regrets, need and exercise of new chance of viewer. A charming film for fair sketches of loneliness and traits of mature love from attraction. And, sure, for few scenes , dialogues , for end to, defining a lost manner to define reality.

My wife rented this hoping to see some romance. Idle hope. Not much romance between Hurt and Deneuve. Nice to see that Deneuve can still play an attractive lady though. Hurt is on auto-pilot. There are some fragments from 'An affair to remember' making you wish you were seeing that old movie again instead of this French 'remake'. Definitively not worth the time.