French film buff heaven: Huppert & Depardieu ground Guillaume Nicloux's VALLEY OF LOVE

An ex-Californian like me does not tend to think of "love" when he ponders Death Valley, located in the eastern part of the state near the Nevada border and considered by many to be the hottest place on earth. Yet that must have been the primary thing on the mind of French director Guillaume Nicloux when he titled his new film, which takes place there, VALLEY OF LOVE. What a strange and commanding -- the latter adjective thanks in large part to its two stars, Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu -- movie this is!

M. Nicloux, shown at left, has been making odd movies for nearly three decades now, very few of which I've seen (it's more the mainstream/arthouse foreign films that find their way into distribution over here). One of my favorites of his is the very dark and disturbing Hanging Offense (Cette femme-là), which I caught at one of the FSLC's Rendezvous-With French Cinemas more than a decade ago. In his new film, which he both wrote and directed (this filmmaker usually writes -- or at least co-writes or adapts -- all his work), a character named Isabelle and another named Gérard meet in Death Valley because their recently deceased son (he was a suicide) has written them each a letter asking them to come to this sunken, sweltering place, where he promises, if they arrive, he will, too.

Right: How would grieving parents -- even if, as it seems, they were not very good parents -- be able not to follow these instructions?  The actors appear to be playing some version of themselves here, and many of us will know that M. Depardieu lost his eldest son, Guillaume, to an untimely death from pneumonia at aged 37. Ms Huppert, so far as I know (TrustMovies tends not to much follow the personal lives of actors), has not lost a child, but she played a woman who is in the process of doing just that in the 2012 film, Dormant Beauty). Further, because these two French icons first worked together on Going Places (1974) and then again in Loulou (1980), the stage would seem set for something strangely personal, if nothing else.

The characters, Isabelle (above) and Gérard (below), do meet near the beginning of Valley of Love, and for the next 90 minutes, they spar and bond and break to spar again. The chemistry between these two is just about perfect. It's nothing hugely charismatic or showy, however, but rather the chemistry found in something closer to people who have known each other -- and very well -- over a long period of time. The behavior here is spot-on in terms of how former spouses act/react off each other.

That behavior mostly carries the movie, once Nicloux's slender plot is unveiled. What happens can be interpreted, I think, in various ways. The most obvious is that, yes, something otherworldly has taken place. But one might also say that these two highly vulnerable people have been somehow high-jacked -- self-brainwashed -- into belief.

Either way (or via some other theory), the movie works, thanks to the simplicity and truth in the actor's performances. If the death of a child is the worst thing that can happen to a parent (I think it is), when that death is by suicide, this takes the situation into a realm beyond measure.

Yet that valley of the title seems somehow correct by film's end. Was that what the couple's son was attempting to provide the two? However you choose to view what happens here, the actors and M. Nicloux take us on the kind of metaphysical/mystical/geographical trip that you very rarely encounter, and for this alone, the film is worth seeing.

The vistas, as you might expect, and often breathtaking, and the movie offers up a palpable sense of transporting heat. The small supporting cast is fine, too, but the film belong to its iconic stars.

Valley of Love, from Strand Releasing, opens this Friday, March 25, in New York City at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. In the weeks to come, it will hit another ten cities and theaters. (Click here and then click on Screenings to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.) In any case, Strand usually and eventually offers DVD and streaming opportunities, so hang on, those of you who do not live near any of these dozen cities.

Xavier Dolan and his continuing MOMMY problems come to the fore once more

Xavier Dolan, the French-Canadian boy-wonder is at it again. The currently 25-year-old writer/director -- I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats, Laurence Anyways (we haven't been theatrically graced yet with 2013's Tom at the Farm) -- is still having some trouble growing up. Hell, so do we all. But most of us do not make overlong, boring and repetitive movies (yes, with some brilliant stuff in them, now and again) out of the experience. MOMMY, Dolan's latest endeavor, is yet another look, in pointlessly small-screen mode (more of this later) at an extremely troubled relationship between mother and son.

M. Dolan, pictured at left (photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez, courtesy of Getty Images), generally chooses some excellent actors to use as bait and gives them surprising, often shocking stuff to say and do. Initially, we're hooked. And then, little by little -- at least for those of us who want more than a lot of repeated yelling, cursing and getting all in-your-face -- we become so annoyed and tired of it all that we slowly remove ourselves from that hook. And so it is here: for every fine acting moment and bit of choice dialog, there are several more that grow awfully wearisome.

We should probably begin our critique with the opening credit explanation that Dolan feeds us, explaining that his movie is set in some slightly distant future when Canada has passed a new law that, if I am remembering correctly, gives parents the right to hospitalize their problemed offspring as wards of the state. I am assuming he must do this because, as Canada now stands, what happens in the movie could not happen without this slightly "otherwise" circumstance. But since the film is all about fraught relations between mother (Anne Dorval, above) and teenage child (Antoine-Olivier Pilon, below), a not particularly unusual problem, one would think that the filmmaker could have handled this without this pointless if-things-were-otherwise element.

Further, Dolan has elected to shoot almost all of his film in an aspect ratio the IMDB calls 1:1. This is ridiculously narrow, like watching an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper on screen. (Even more so because we are always aware that the movie's frame is not properly filled out.) Well, thought I, he'll soon open up to wider proportions. Hah. We wait almost two hours before the filmmaker finally decides to grace us with width -- and then it's only for a brief fantasy segment in which the characters appear to be have aged into better versions of their former selves. Ah, a few feel-good moments thanks to wide-screen!

Otherwise, Mommy is mostly all screaming and fighting and then making up (briefly) before starting all over again. A neighbor (Suzanne Clément, above) who has her own problems -- speech and communication among them -- gets involved with our pair, as mom's friend and son's "caretaker," and this of course leads to further "fraughtness." After now seeing four of Dolan's films, several things seem clear. Our boy likes 'em lengthy (this one runs two hours and twenty minutes) and repetitive. There are enough of what you'd call plot and content here to last an hour or so. The rest is filler, though handled at times with great passion.

Passion, along with connection and relationships, are Dolan's aces-in-the-hole -- even if all these seem to have no real consequences along the way -- until at last we get to the point that the filmmaker has been promising since that opening credit explanation. Consequence does not even exist, it seems, regarding the poor teenager whose face our boy earlier burned almost beyond recognition in the group home in which they both lived. But I guess that's OK somehow because, hey, it's all been so "passionate." If you've seen several of Dolan's oeuvre and then encounter Mommy, you may want, as do I, to make a small suggestion: Fucking grow up, Xavier! Or at least give us movies that do.

Mommy, from Roadside Attractions, opens today in New York City (at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center) and in the West Los Angeles at The Landmark.  It was, by the way, the Canadian entry for this year's Best Foreign Language Film.

David Wexler's THE STAND UP proves a pleasant wish-fulfillment rom-com about love, loss and growing up

The first thing you'll probably question during David Wexler's new rom-com-dram about love and loss is, "How the hell did a guy like this get a girl like that?" To the film's great credit, by the finale -- when our hero has moved from one beauty to the next, growing up a bit in the process -- you'll accept it as pretty much par for his course. After all, it is just a movie. And not a bad one, either, once you agree to play by its rather odd rules.

THE STAND UP has a dual meaning, as it turns out. The lead character, Zoe, sports a strange name (for a fellow, at least) that proves a good indication of things to come. Played as a pudgy and none too glamorous performer by actor Jonathan Sollis (above), he's a stand-up comic to whom life tosses a metaphorical grenade; how he recovers from the explosion and finds the will to stand up again is the arc of the plot.

Filmmaker Wexler (shown at left) wants us to take as a given that Zoe's a fairly successful comic. From the on-stage bits we barely see and hear, you'll have to take this on faith. Ditto the relationship between Zoe and his gorgeous girlfriend, Miranda (played by Julia Dennis, below). What's this about? How did they meet and fall in love? What drew her to him? Don't bother asking: It's a fait accompli. Maybe it's just because the guy is so f-ing taletned. Look at Billy Joel (among others) and his parade of paramours.

In any case, tragedy strikes, and Zoe loses Miranda. How? Why? Don't ask, because neither I, nor the film, will tell you. So we must stop mourning and move on. Now the film begins to get interesting. Zoe has moved back in with his dad (a fine Aidan Quinn, below) who eventually wants him out of the house and on his own again, but to that end, Zoe needs a job. Dad conveniently runs what is referred to as public school in the city, but it seems in such good shape and with such small classes that the filmmaker must be using the term as the Brits use it for their public schools.

Sooner than you can say convenience and coincidence, our guy is teaching kindergarten to an adorable class (below) and of course doing a pretty good job of it. It's interesting that here, in the  classroom, Mr. Wexler let's us see Zoe's penchant for humor and smarts better than in the club. (How he works "the body of Christ" into his chatter to the kids is classic.)

Our hero also meets another young and quite attractive teacher (played by Margarita Levieva, below) who comes complete with her own conveniently sad love story. Now, if it sounds as though I am dissing this little movie, I'm not. While it is manufactured and full of too-easy stuff, it's also quite enjoyable to sit through -- thanks to the performances of the entire cast, and to the quick-wittedness of the filmmaker as writer and director.

Mr. Sollis is quite winning and so is Ms Levieva, and Quinn is his usual good self. The pacing is swift, and the film is full of spontaneity and charm, never more so than in the scene in which Zoe catches his dad in a compromising position. The Stand Up should make a fine date movie for folk who want a good time but don't want to sit too long (it's only 83 minutes, including credits).

The movie, from Cinetic Media, opens this Friday, September 14, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, and perhaps elsewhere, eventually. (If not, it will certainly be available in time on DVD and/or digitally.)