FILM REVIEW: La Belle Epoque Is a Mainstream Rom-Com Masquerading as More
La Belle Epoque is a strange beast. While not a bad movie, it may have, perhaps, rubbed me the wrong way. Masquerading as an off-beat Charlie Kaufman-esque romp, the film more closely resembles the saccharine tendencies of Richard Curtis’s Love, Actually. If this is your bag, then so be it. It certainly was for many in the audience at the screening.
To be fair, it does romance and humour well. It does light-hearted fluff very well; and while I was squirming in my seat, I was surrounded by laughter and moments of rapt attention. Regardless, the films main flaws lie in its inability to say anything about … anything.
Victor (Daniel Auteuil) is a man against the age. He rejects technology, he opposes his son’s decisions as a business savvy entrepreneur, and he feels perplexed by his wife’s (Fanny Ardant) desire to stay young and succumb to what he sees as an affront to real experience. When his despotic views become too much for his wife, she promptly throws him out into the cruel, confusing world. Victor’s next move is to employ the services of a company that devise immersive theatrical experiments to recreate its client’s memories in hyper-realistic splendour, complete with actors, stage-set, props etc. Victor wants to return to his youth, cosied up in 1974 in a small bar in Lyon where he first met his wife: his ‘la belle epoque’. Hijinks ensue.
La Belle Epoque’s most redeeming quality lies in its humour. Nicolas Bedo’s direction offers moments of genuine hilarity that suggest Monty Python-esque zaniness. Daniel Auteuil and Fanny Ardant as the combatant aging couple prove strong leads and deliver deft comic timing with their razor sharp barbs towards each other. The production team behind the memory sets also display comedic flair, with perfectly timed quips that keep the movie bouncing along and nimble pace. Indeed, the entire premise lends itself to some visually spectacular sequences, notably where Victor and Margot travel from set to set, experiencing various nuggets of history and affording Victor the chance to express his distaste for one of histories most reviled political tyrants.
Humour aside, the film doesn’t really say anything. Should it? Should movies have a moral compass or a central theme? I’m not so sure. But the romance, whilst steamy and emotionally-charged, seems altogether toxic. Victor and his wife are clearly sick of each other, and the on-again-off-again relationship between Antione (Guillaume Canet), the ever-moody film director and Margot (Doria Tiller), the neurotic, obnoxious actress, is aggressive, abusive, and just annoying. Again, not a problem, but when the director fails to really say anything interesting about these relationship dynamics the film feels kind of empty.
The same could be said for Victor’s desire to return to his youth. Is it good to want to live in the past? Should we know when to move on, or should we cling to an abusive partner because they’re the only one that understands you? Who knows? Who cares? Let’s all party like it’s the 70’s and ogle women half our age. The central themes of the film are presented but not really explored and contribute to a pervasive hollowness that robs the film of its potential to say something interesting about aging, about relationships, about surveillance, technology and the modern world. The carrot is dangling in front of our faces but we just can’t take a bite.
Despite moments of redemption La Belle Epoque left me feeling quite empty, in the same way a fluffy, mainstream rom-com with nothing interesting to say about love might.
2.5 out of 5 stars
