‘Coup de Likelihood’ Assessment: Woody Allen’s French Movie Is Competent however Forgettable

Let’s deal with the elephant within the room first: Woody Allen hasn’t made an incredible movie in years. Opinions range enormously, after all, on which one was the final top-notch effort: Some would go to bat for, say Blue Jasmine (2013), whereas others defend Match Level (2005). Many others reckon that Husbands and Wives (1992) was the final gasp of greatness earlier than it began going bumpily downhill.

And naturally there are these, particularly amongst youthful filmgoers who didn’t develop up with Allen as a type of mascot for American East Coast Jewish id, who simply don’t get what the fuss was ever about — and/or why the olds so need to defend somebody who has been accused by his daughter Dylan Farrow of sexual abuse, even when prices have been by no means introduced towards him.

Oh yeah, that’s one other elephant, isn’t it?

That final controversy could not put Allen in the identical class as Roman Polanski, who, like Allen, has additionally had his newest programmed into the Venice Movie Pageant this 12 months. Like Polanski’s The Palace, Coup de Likelihood occurs to be exhibiting out of competitors, however which strand it’s in is of little curiosity to festival-goers who really feel his inclusion in any form or type is an insult to survivors.

This overview is just not the place to rehash these argument once more, however they’re value allowing for when contemplating Coup de Likelihood‘s backstory. For this principally competent however largely uninteresting, bordering-on-silly work upholds the Allen custom of simply carrying on as typical — doing the identical previous factor, kind of, with tiny improvements across the edges and a few actors within the solid who haven’t labored with Allen earlier than.

Coup‘s most placing innovation — a profession first for Allen — is that it’s completely in French, a language the director admits he doesn’t communicate in any respect. To my thoughts, the language barrier hasn’t stopped him from eliciting serviceable performances from the principle solid. However even this facet of the movie feels overshadowed by the controversy concerning Allen’s personal life, because it could possibly be seen as proof that Anglophone performers really feel it isn’t well worth the problem of working with Allen given the probability of backlash. Plus there’s the truth that his previous few movies have struggled even to get launched within the U.S.

In France, they see issues in a different way, principally. Whereas a number of of Allen’s common current collaborators are nonetheless working with him — akin to costume designer Sonia Grande, editor Alisa Lepselter, and legendary DP Vittorio Storaro (utilizing digital for the primary time right here to seize gorgeous autumnal landscapes) — they’re joined not simply by an all-French solid but additionally some native craftspeople, like manufacturing designer Veronique Melery. The result’s a easily environment friendly however oddly nameless work that appears prefer it was made by a French director who’s a superfan of Allen, however probably not Woody himself.

The plot is one other variation on his run of great ruminations on ethics like Crime and Misdemeanors (1989) or Match Level, mild on jokes however with the identical moneyed milieu because the comedies. Whereas Allen explains within the press notes that he initially conceived this as a narrative about expat People overseas, the recasting of the story with all French characters, all scions of the haute bourgeoisie as per typical, works okay (though Parisians are certain to nitpick particulars like real-estate settings and costume particulars simply as a lot as Londoners did with Match Level).

The primary protagonists are married couple Fanny (Lou de Laage, nice), a gallerist, and her barely older husband Jean (Melvil Poupaud), some type of venal, poorly outlined cash man whose job is, as he describes it patronizingly to his spouse, making wealthy individuals richer. Fanny lived in New York in her youth, the place she attended a French lycee and was beforehand married to a druggie bohemian kind we by no means meet. She’s somewhat uncomfortable that the rich set she strikes in today thinks of her as a trophy spouse (she’s proper, they do), and insists that she doesn’t need to put on the flamboyant jewellery Jean buys her or to look too attractive within the little black costume he likes her to put on to make different males jealous. (It really works, judging by the reactions we hear from the chorus-like peripheral characters.)

Within the opening sequence, Fanny runs into Alain (Niels Schneider, likable), a schoolmate from her New York days, who professes virtually off the bat that he all the time had a crush on her. Since highschool, Alain has grow to be a author — not precisely profitable however doing properly sufficient that he can afford a well-lit top-floor garret condominium with one bed room. Over a couple of weeks and a collection of picnic lunches in parks, the 2 begin having an affair. However Jean, sensing one thing’s up, has her adopted by detectives. And when he finds out the reality, he exhibits his true, most ruthless colours.

There’s a average quantity of suspense round which approach issues will go for Fanny, Jean and Alain that Allen handles with some fashion. The issue is that it’s just about the identical fashion he’s had for a very long time and, other than the aforementioned proven fact that that is in French, it looks like the identical previous standard during — proper as much as the “shock” ending that’s hokey and predictably “random,” apropos of the theme of probability the characters maintain banging on about all through.

Simply earlier than the top credit rolled — backed by a nice horn-forward monitor that’s of a bit with the extra edgy, bebop-era selection of jazz cuts all through — the final line, “Greatest to not dwell on it,” lingered for a weirdly very long time within the subtitle field on the screening I attended. Actually, these are clever phrases of recommendation on the subject of this slight, forgettable movie.