Why Not Me?
original title: Pourquoi Pas Moi? | |
dir-scr Stephane Giusti with Bruno Putzulu, Julie Gayet, Amira Cesar, Alexandra London, Carmen Chaplin, Johnny Halliday, Vittoria Scognamiglio, Assumpta Serna, Elli Medeiros, Joan Crosas, Birgitte Rouan, Marie-France Pisier, Jean-Claude Dauphin release UK 24.Nov.00 99/France 1h31 | |
Review by Rich Cline |
Take it on the chin. Nico (Putzulu) gets the reaction he was expecting when he comes out to his glamorous mother (Scognamiglio). |
The film is charming, energetic and utterly disarming as it charges through its story. The characters are all rather stereotypical, yet they all have surprises lurking up their sleeves, both in little secrets and in the way they respond to the situations at hand. And the entire cast is thoroughly entertaining, especially as the generations come head to head. The direction is a bit distracting, as Giusti uses camera and narrative with little regard to coherence. Some sequences are edited into oblivion, while others are so gimmicky that that point of the scene is lost in the clever, complex camera work and actor movement. But as a writer, Giusti is obviously having a ball tacking this subject matter in such a comic way, briefly touching on the serious implications, but only in superficial ways.
[15--themes, language] 16.Nov.00