If you loved Amelie, chances are you'll like A Very Long Engagement - it's
beautifully filmed, well-acted and a little too cute for its own good.
Audrey Tautou stars as a plucky girl in post-World War I France, trying to
track down her fiancé - one of five soldiers convicted of cowardice and sent
to an almost certain death in no man's land. The trench-set sequences are
grimly involving and the
camera loves Tautou, but the uneven, quirky tone robs the movie of much
emotion.
Director/co-writer Jean-Pierre Jeunet can't seem to help himself: he's just
a kerazy guy. So, Tautou's semi-grieving girl plays the tuba by the sea and
looks and sounds, yes, ridiculous. A shattered statue of Christ crucified
stands on the wasteland of the Somme, but later we're asked to be amused by
the elaborate murders of a mysterious female assassin (the terrific Marion
Cotillard). It's not that you can't find black humour in war - just look at
Gulf War classic Three Kings - but it's hard to make us care about the
characters when the makers treat the Great War as the
background for a fairytale.
"AUDIENCES WILL FALL FOR TAUTOU"
Tautou is a star, unquestionably, and she has the ability to make an
audience fall for her. It's that which will carry fans through this long
(very, very long) engagement, even if her character, like the film itself,
looks good but has no real heart. It's beautiful, but not truthful: a
pedigree shaggy dog story.
In French with English subtitles.
A Very Long Engagement (Un Long Dimanche De Fiançailles) (2005)
