French Exit
With the adjective “French” in the title French Exit, much more can be expected than someone just leaving a country. With existential echoes and philosophical attitude the French can have over a croissant, an audience can see where writer Patrick DeWitt and director Azazel Jacobs are going in this low-key drawing-room comedy.
The glamorous Michell Pfeiffer plays sixty-year-old former Manhattan socialite Frances, who encourages thoughts that go from the losses aging brings to the mortality ultimately reserved for all. She has lost her wealthy businessman husband, Franklin (voice of Tracy Letts), who returns with the help of randy seer Madeleine the Medium (Danielle Macdonald) in the form of a black cat (yes, the occult element is one of the lighter elements of a film, described as a comedy but really a darkly and quietly humorous melodrama). Call it a farce because it’s French, but don’t expect to laugh much.
A haughty Michelle Pfeiffer can t quite save eccentric French Exit Lucas Hedges in Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges in
French Exit.
Photo by Tobias Datum / courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics Movies directed by Woody Allen have fallen out of favor in recent years as the man himself has been increasingly shunned in the #MeToo era. But the style that the writer/director perfected in movies like
Annie Hall,
Hannah and Her Sisters, and
Bullets Over Broadway has remained a draw for filmmakers, who often view his dry humor and witty repartee as something to be admired and emulated. That spirit, if not success, is alive in
Review: Michelle Pfeiffer has a feast with ‘French Exit’
Michelle Pfeiffer, left, and Susan Coyne in a scene from French Exit. (Jerome Prebois/Sony Pictures Classics via AP)
Published April 08. 2021 11:07AM
By LINDSEY BAHR, Associated Press Get the weekly rundown Email Submit
Is there any living actor better at the disdainful eye roll than Michelle Pfeiffer? Her latest turn in “ French Exit ” should end all debate on the matter. The film itself is a bit of an odd duckling. It’s arch, cold and self-consciously contrived, works more often than it doesn’t. Pfeiffer is flawless in her most delicious performance in years as a New York society woman who has, much to her aloof annoyance, run out of money.
Film Shorts // April 7-13, 2021
The Man Who Sold His Skin (NR) Nominated for the Oscar for Best International Film, this Tunisian drama is about a Syrian refugee (Yahya Mahyani) who becomes a living art exhibit in a museum. Also with Dea Liane, Koen de Bouw, Saad Lostan, Christian Vadim, Darina al-Joundi, and Monica Bellucci. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Photo courtesy of YouTube.com.
OPENING
Held (NR) Jill Awbrey and Bart Johnson star in this horror film as a couple trying to repair their marriage when a disembodied voice at their vacation house takes control. Also with Rez Kempton, Zack Gold, Jener Dasilva, and Tessa Munro. (Opens Friday)
Helen Mirren
The biopic from Oscar-winning Israeli director Guy Nattiv will be set during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Helen Mirren is set to portray Israel s only female prime minister Golda Meir in an upcoming biopic set during the Yom Kippur War.
Golda, from BAFTA-winning producer Michael Kuhn (
Florence Foster Jenkins,
The Duchess) and being directed by Oscar winner Guy Nattiv, will focus on the 1973 conflict, when Egypt, Syria, and Jordan launched a surprise attack on Israel to reclaim territory lost during the Six-Day War in 1967, and the decisions made by Meir amid infighting from her all-male cabinet. Nicholas Martin (
Florence Foster Jenkins) wrote the screenplay and also produces.