French fun and games in Laurent Tirard's period charmer, RETURN OF THE HERO

A French frolic worth seeking out (it made its DVD debut last week and is also now available via digital/streaming), RETURN OF THE HERO proves one of those exceedingly rare costume comedies that should have you smiling, chuckling and occasionally outright guffawing at the antics of the clever (or not so) characters on screen.

This is, unfortunately, the kind of movie that gets lost in the shuffle precisely because it has nothing to offer -- no important theme, no great art, nor maybe any redeeming social value -- other than first-class entertainment. That last, of course, never in great supply, should be reason enough to see it.

As written and directed by Laurent Tirard (of the Nicholas movies) -- a writer and filmmaker, shown at right, that our critical establishment, as well as perhaps its French equivalent, prefers not to take seriously and therefore deliberately overlooks the work of -- the movie knows exactly what it is and where it is going and thus arrives there in its breezy 89 minutes with nary a hitch.

Return of the Hero is anchored by the terrific performances of its two leads: Jean Dujardin (above, left, and below, right) and Mélanie Laurent (above, right and below, left), both at the top of their very fine form.

M. Dujardin is in his element, playing a handsome, pompous would-be military officer (only his uniform, we suspect, is real, and most probably belongs to somebody else), while Ms Laurent, more often seen in serious roles, here gives her penchant for subtle comedy its rein and matches her co-star, gibe for delightful gibe.

When at film's beginning, "Captain" Neuville (Dujardin) proposes to Pauline, the younger daughter (Noémie Merlant, above, front right) of the wealthy Beaugrand family, Laurent -- as the older, wiser sis -- smells trouble and goes on high alert.

What happens in the course of this smart little movie is not quite the expected, as one surprise topples over the next, in the course of which love and justice are both somehow served, though not in the manner we might have expected.

The supporting cast is as good as are the leads, with Christian Bujeau and Evelyne Buyle (above, left and right respectively) playing the foolish, funny Beaugrand parents, and an actor new to me, Christophe Montenez (below, right), especially fine as the endearing young man in love with the wrongly besotted Pauline.

By the finale of the film, our two main characters have grown and changed, and you may feel, as did TrustMovies, that writer/director Tirard has made a smart, snide and subtle comment about the worth of the society of the time (early 19th Century France) via the direction his "hero" and "heroine" choose to take.

All in all, a highly enjoyable little lark, Return of the Hero never received even a limited theatrical release here in the USA, so we must be grateful to Icarus Home Video and Distrib Films US for the opportunity to finally see it -- available now on DVD and/or streaming, for purchase or rental.

More than you know: Stéphane Brizé's de Maupassant adaptation, A WOMAN'S LIFE

The title of Guy de Maupassant's first novel is Une Vie, which is also the original French title of the new film adapted from that novel by Stéphane Brizé and Florence Vignon and directed by Brizé. The title of the American release has been changed to A WOMAN'S LIFE, which does immediate disservice to both the film and its source novel by assuring viewers that this is "woman's picture." This will certainly guarantee less males in the audience and more females. The simpler "A Life" is so much more apt and generous, and though de Maupassant was more than aware of a woman's predicament during the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, his choice of the non-gender title itself calls attention to the difference in experience had that titular life belonged to a man rather than to a woman.

M. Brizé's adaptation -- the filmmaker, shown at right, has earlier given us such excellent movies as Mademoiselle Chabon, The Measure of a Man, and A Few Hours of Spring (click and scroll down) -- is a masterful one, if very slowly paced. Action lovers be warned. But if you give yourself over to this leisurely, extra-ordinarily quiet movie, you may come away changed by having indeed experienced...
a life.

That life belongs to a young woman named Jeanne (played by Judith Chemla, shown above and below), whom we meet on the cusp of adulthood and then follow for two generations, as her life moves along, growing slowly and surely ever more out of her control.

But then, how could it not, since she has been groomed by her loving and sensible parents -- played respectively by French and Belgian icons Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Yolande Moreau (shown below, at right and left, with Ms Moreau seen again at bottom left) -- to learn little but how to garden, read and serve her husband.

We witness her marriage to and life with a pretty-boy rotter named Julien (Swann Arlaud, below, right), who, yes, manages to impregnate the maid and then offer up the usual apology of the time. (Not so very unlike those we're increasingly used to hearing these days.)

Her son appears to take after his father (if this sounds like an anti-male screed, it is more like a reflection of the male entitlement of that day), and Jeanne's lack of understanding of finances (and much else), coupled to her complete dedication to, first, Julien and then to her son, slowly begin to destroy her well-being.

Religion is given a good going-over, with one local priest pushing for forgiveness above all (hey, look at Jesus!), while his successor insists on the kind of truth-telling that proves utterly destructive to not only life itself but to the very sanctity of the confessional.

How all this turns out -- the final line, as often happens with de Maupassant, is a lulu -- is deeply sad but also oddly bracing, with one character reappearing unexpectedly to help our heroine as her mind and her money dissolves. The film's quiet, deliberate pacing and attention to detail exert their own charm and abiding reality. Stick with Une Vie, and Jeanne may very well brand herself on your memory -- by virtue of her very limitations -- as one of the movies' more memorable characters.

From Kino Lorber and running a lengthy two hours, the movie opens this Friday, May 5, in New York City at both the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Quad Cinema, and on the following Friday, May 12, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal and here in Miami at the Tower Theater.

The Sunday Reading Corner with Lee Liberman-- A HEAVENLY VINTAGE (2009) and its source novel, The Vintner's Luck (1998): Less is More

Note: This film is now available for streaming 

(as of March 2019) via Amazon Prime

{Editor's note: Lee Liberman, who wrote today' s post, first communicated with TrustMovies on the subject of the film A Heavenly Vintage (TM's original review of that film can be found here), so today marks an anniversary of sorts, as Lee has at last gotten around to covering from her perspective, as she's been promising, this unusual and very fine film. She also compares it with the novel on which it is based, which I had not read. Enjoy!}

Elizabeth Knox, author of "The Vintner's Luck", the novel on which A HEAVENLY VINTAGE was based, confesses to having cried in bed for days, so disappointed was she by the film treatment of her work by fellow New Zealander, director Niki Caro (Whale Rider, North Country), about the angel Xas ("sass") and the French winemaker Sobran.

Film reviewers were all over the map -- one calling it 'amazing silliness', another praising its 'lyrical beauty and intelligence'. It never made it into US theaters -- that despite acclaim at festivals and Caro's fine reputation. (Whale Rider's 13-year-old star and best actress Academy Award nominee, Keisha Castle-Hughes, now years later, plays Sobran's wife, Celeste.) Happily "A Heavenly Vintage" is available on DVD and Netflix streaming -- memorable for its beauty and its modern parable.

I was very surprised to find the film mired in controversy on line, leading to my reading the novel to see what Caro omitted that made Knox loyalists so angry. It is beautifully, lyrically penned with strands of Plato's theory of forms threaded throughout; it includes a murder plot and picaresque adventures that the angel Xas has on his own. For all its absorbing parts and bits of wisdom, however, it doesn't hold together as Caro's work does -- admitting to my own preference for a taut storytelling arc in which characters grow or there's purpose to it.

Caro abducted the setting and main characters from Knox's novel but she abandoned subplots and narrowed her script to a story that both plucks at the heart and strikes a blow against the sort of religious superstition that thwarts innovation and progress (as timely a topic now as in church-dominated rural France of the 1800's). It makes me think of Shakespeare's theft of plots from mythology and history and making epic work of them. While not Shakespeare, Caro did this, plucking a jewel from Knox's tapestry.

The deploy of an angel to make a methodical case against superstition makes a paradoxical device to seduce both Sobran and the viewer into a message of enlightened and benign self-interest. Yet the story, characters, and lovely score by Antonio Pinto are so spun with gold that the viewer is almost unaware of the enlightenment era subtext as Sobran's life of (many) loves and much toil plays out.

Perhaps Knox grieved the absence of her Platonic theory, but gay fans of her novel were expressly angered by the absence of the explicitly same-sex relationship between Sobran and Xas -- as though homosexuality itself were being demeaned. Caro went the route of 'less is more'; in fact the film viewer experiences their merging more deeply than Knox's reader does paging through love scenes in the novel.

Caro narrows the film's focus to Sobran's internal war between his superstitious peasant soul and his ambitious modern mind. His wife Celeste anchors his emotional and family life. His employer, business partner, and lover, the young atheist Baroness Aurora engages both emotional and intellectual needs (the lovely Vera Farmiga, below, right). In Xas, however, is the beloved, frustrating councilor who forces Sobran to shed his notions of heaven's blessing and protection.

Appearing in the vineyard one June night and yearly thereafter for much of Sobran's life, is the winged creature portrayed by Frenchman Gaspard Ulliel (below, left), full of heart, light, and the smell of snow. Sobran is played and ages convincingly from youth through death by fine Belgian/French actor, Jérémie Renier (below, right, and above, left). Sobran tells Celeste, "God's luck is on my side." -- he feels protected, enfolded by the angel's favor. When he attempts to kiss Xas, the angel turns away, unwilling to allow Sobran to conflate their friendship with "success" or "God's blessing".

"You are supposed to protect me," Sobran argues. "If you don't protect me, why are you here?" Xas answers simply, "because I want to be." "It is in your hands... the wine you make, the life you choose." It's a tough understanding for Sobran, to which he listens but does not hear: their love, in fact God's love, is not going to get great vintage; Sobran has to get it on his own.

Xas, himself a gardener, encourages Sobran to innovate in the vineyard. "You need to think of the taste you want and then balance the soil to achieve it." "Poor soil means mineral, stone, taste, flavor; but the plant will have to fight to get what it needs. And it is that effort and yours that will show in the character of the wine."

In time, Xas reveals that he is a "fallen angel", having fallen by choice -- a well-lived life is not either heaven's bliss or hell's pain but both together. The revelation pushes Sobran into a grim depression -- this fallen angel may curse his luck; Celeste runs for the priest. An ensuing vintage fails catastrophically due to blight. It takes Sobran's arduous fight back from total loss to embrace the angel's wisdom and to make his peace. It's a shame that peeved Knox fans short-changed the film version of the unity between angel and man and its lovely message. If you are with Caro, you will re-experience your own ambition, heartbreak, and triumph. Also, along the way, you'll gain love for the art and respect for the science of winemaking.

A Heavenly Vintage can be streamed now, exclusively via Netflix, though it is also available, for sale and rental, on DVD.