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AVENUE MONTAIGNE Send This Review to a Friend
As we have seen from her past work (“La Bûche”), French director Danièle Thompson can make a classy film that entertains and illuminates, and her latest, “Avenue Montaigne” (“Fauteuils D’Orchestre”) is a fresh, sophisticated romantic comedy that glistens with the look of Paris and its cultural aspects. Thompson wittily co-wrote the film with her son, Christopher Thompson, and has further enlivened it with a superb cast.
Cécile de France is extremely appealing as Jessica, who adores her grandmother and listens to her repetitive accounts of how she made her way to Paris as a young girl. Jessica follows in her footsteps with determination, and her job as a waitress in an Avenue Montaigne bistro is her launching pad from which she makes a vital impression on all who come in contact with her.
The character entourage concocted by the Thompsons is fascinating. There is the colorful, demanding actress Catherine Versen, played with amusing gusto by Valérie Lemercier. American actor-director Sydney Pollack plays an American filmmaker who becomes enchanted by Lemercier and is convinced she’ll make a great Simone de Beauvoir in his next project. (She would.)
Christopher Thompson is cast as Frédéric, an appealing but unhappy young man ripe for the charms of Jessica. His father, Jacques, played with charm and world-weariness by Claude Brasseur, is a successful art collector and is about to sell all of his art at auction. There are, as might be expected, father-son issues. Another key character is that of a renowned pianist, Jean-François Lefort (Albert Dupontel), whose wife and manager in what has become an unhappy marriage is played by Laura Morante.
The director remarkably juggles three events as the film builds climactically—a concert, a theater performance and an art auction, all in proximity, and all important in how the plot works out. The overall tone is frothy, with scenes ranging from the hilarious to the tender. This is a most accomplished example of filmmaking by a director in fine form.
A ThinkFilm release.
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