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CHANGE OF PLANS Send This Review to a Friend
Once again French writer-director Danièle Thompson scores with a witty, complex look at a strata of French society, just as she did with her sophisticated films “La Bûche” and “Avenue Montaigne.” One can count on a Thompson film being classy in looks and content, and this is true with her latest, “Change of Plans,” written in yet another collaboration with her son, Christopher Thompson, who also acts in the film. The screenplay is built around a succession of annual dinner parties, a device for peering into the lives of the leading characters. Family differences and infidelities keynote the intricacies of the plot, smoothly unveiled as the captivating and exquisitely acted film clips along engagingly.
The hosts are skilled divorce lawyer M L (Karin Viard) and her husband Piotr (the endearing comic actor Dany Boon). Piotr is unemployed, depressed and searching for something he would like to do. Meanwhile, he is displaying his love for cooking in a remade kitchen, whose designer Jean-Louis (Laurent Stocker) has secretly bedded his wife. The film has a funny gag in the end credits—Piotr’s vaunted stew recipe is attributed to Roman Polanski, whose stunning looking wife Emmanuelle Seigner plays the author Sarah.
Other characters include M L’s sister Juliette (Marina Hands), who is still angry with her estranged father Henri (PierreArditi) for having left her late mother. Juliette has an older companion Erwann (Patrick Chesnais). There are cancer doctor Alain (Patrick Bruel), fed up with overseeing deaths, and his unfaithful wife Mélanie (Marina Foïs), who is a gynecologist and planning to leave their marriage but unable to spring the news. Another couple consists of Sarah (Seigner) and her hot-shot lawyer husband Lucas (Christopher Thompson), who is bored with Sarah. Lucas is in a quandary when he discovers that Piotr has been cheating on M L with Sarah and doesn’t want to reveal it to M L. All understood? Did I mention there are also a surprise pregnancy and a serious injury in the mix?
While the film is satirical, exemplified by all the bitching done about hating to go to the dinner parties and dislike for one another among those invited to attend, the story also manages to be serious about the lives under inspection. That makes for warmth along with the comedy. One gets caught up in the emotions and problems faced, even while chuckling at the skewering of the people and the situations in which they find themselves.
Director Thompson has a good eye for casting and atmosphere. A case in point is the inclusion of Blanca Li as Manuela, a flamenco dancer and teacher with a fascinating face, whose desire to open a flamenco emporium adds a colorful note. So does the street music festival motif that ties up traffic and is interwoven with the story.
Some of the switches back and forth in time add a measure of confusion. This is a film that would be fun to see again, the better to appreciate the juggling director/co-screenwriter Thompson does in etching this compelling stew of characters in flux. It all adds up to clever, witty entertainment that is delightfully French. An IFC Films release.
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