CINEMA: French Film

It looks like 2009 is firming up to be something of a fine vintage for a certain Eric Cantona on film. Not only does he have a rather charming starring role here, but he also stars in Ken Loach’s new movie, making him our favourite footballer-turned-actor du jour.

Here he is acclaimed French filmmaker Thierry whose musings on life and love are at first pooh-poohed by bluff English journalist Jed (Hugh Bonneville) who has been commissioned to interview the Frenchman. However, when Jed’s long-term girlfriend Cheryl (Victoria Hamilton) and his mates Marcus (Douglas Hensall) and Sophie (Anne-Marie Duff) question Jed’s romantic credentials, he starts to see there may be more to this l’amour stuff than he at first thought. Jed finds it difficult to talk about his feelings so Cheryl carts him off to couple counselling where she begins to realise he really doesn’t have a clue and it slowly dawns on him that “other people fall in love, they talk about it all the time, they write songs about it. I think I might want to fall in love; I’m nearly 40 and I’ve never done it.”

There are plenty of great lines in this rather grown up take on love and all its complications, however the film suffers from the same smug middle-classness that stymied Love, Actually – when the characters start talking about smoked fish and chip ice cream you know the movie has lost the plot somewhat. But it does have a certain rather wistful charm about it (Victoria Hamilton is particularly affecting) and had the editing been slightly slicker and Monsieur Cantona had more scenes, this could have been a real left-field gem.

Dee Pilgrim