The French press has been understandably ecstatic about this film. It brings together one of the most distinguished and prolific actors in French cinema with one of its most luminous and vibrant young female talents. But this isn't just a film about stars and authentic-feeling chemistry. It's a film about character and situation. First and foremost it's a film about dance halls and the singers who work in them. Gérard Depardieu is the aging, almost over-the-hill Alain Moreau "Alain Moreau et son Orchestre". Cécile de France is Marion, a fragile young woman, tough and beautiful on the outside but inside rather shattered, in a new place, Clermont Ferrand, in a new job, selling real estate, with her young son she doesn't get to spend much time with.
Marion meets Alain when her new boss, Bruno (Matthieu Amalric) takes her to a dance hall where the singer is performing. Used to women who swoon over him, Alain comes on strong to Marion but with an edge of reserve and timidity and she resists, but spends a night with him. Then she resists again, and he pursues. Hunting for a house with her as his agent, Alain continues to see Marion and to woo her. She continues to resist and to be charmed, to laugh with him, to find in him something she's never seen in a man before. She's outwardly brilliant and hard, but she has horrible phone conversations with her ex and bad encounters with her little boy and alone in her hotel room she dissolves into tears. He's out of style and overweight, with his little Seventies pocketbook and his leather jacket and his dyed hair with highlights; and she calls him names like "Ladies Man" and "Mr. Corny Loser." But beyond that he's a life force and for now at least he's filling a large space in Marion's world. She goes away for a while, he loses his voice for a while, their house-hunting stops and starts, Bruno makes passes at Marion, but she and Alain still continue to connect on some special emotional level, and when they part, after a stadium concert he walks out on, they're both been changed by their time together and are ready, in their different ways, in their different places, for new beginnings.
The film's most prominent element is character. It lets us get the feel of what it's like to be in Alain's and Marion's skin. But an equally important element is ambiance, the music and the place, which go together: Giannoli's warm acceptance of the provincial world of Clermont Ferrand is in harmony with the seriousness with which Alain and the film itself take the sometimes corny, sometimes subtly poetic chansons that it's Alain's life's work to deliver, to make people dance. The Singer keeps coming back to Alain's world, his faithful wife-manager Michèle (Christine Citti), to his struggle to survive and maintain his dignity, his respect for the songs. When he sings a love song it has to be real; he has to mean it; he must sing it for himself. If you open yourself to the film's bittersweet mood and it works for you, you will also open yourself to the songs and welcome them into your heart.
The Singer is a film that breathes. Its beauty is that it has no easy tragedies or easy resolutions; that things are almost as uncertain between Alain and Marion at the end as they were that first night when she sat in front of him blonde and bright, like a diamond in a red dress. Giannoli is a young director who works with independence and drive. His Les corps impatients was a distinctive and risk-taking film but this one is a leap forward beyond passion and conviction to larger conception, deeper commitment and broader communication. This time Giannoli's done something that can reach a lot of people. Depardieu does his own singing, and his performance as Alain Moreau is one of the best things he's done in a long time at least over a decade and a great thing it is. This was a magnificent opportunity for Cécile de France and she's met it with her best and richest performance to date. It's a tribute to both actors work in The Singer that you find it hard to separate either them from their characters. The film ends with a song, "Quand j'étais chanteur," when I was a singer. "Je m'éclatais comme une bête quand j'étais chanteur," I had a hell of a good time when I was a singer. The Singer is one of those films that isn't putting on a show for you: it's inviting you to come in and hang around a while.
Marion meets Alain when her new boss, Bruno (Matthieu Amalric) takes her to a dance hall where the singer is performing. Used to women who swoon over him, Alain comes on strong to Marion but with an edge of reserve and timidity and she resists, but spends a night with him. Then she resists again, and he pursues. Hunting for a house with her as his agent, Alain continues to see Marion and to woo her. She continues to resist and to be charmed, to laugh with him, to find in him something she's never seen in a man before. She's outwardly brilliant and hard, but she has horrible phone conversations with her ex and bad encounters with her little boy and alone in her hotel room she dissolves into tears. He's out of style and overweight, with his little Seventies pocketbook and his leather jacket and his dyed hair with highlights; and she calls him names like "Ladies Man" and "Mr. Corny Loser." But beyond that he's a life force and for now at least he's filling a large space in Marion's world. She goes away for a while, he loses his voice for a while, their house-hunting stops and starts, Bruno makes passes at Marion, but she and Alain still continue to connect on some special emotional level, and when they part, after a stadium concert he walks out on, they're both been changed by their time together and are ready, in their different ways, in their different places, for new beginnings.
The film's most prominent element is character. It lets us get the feel of what it's like to be in Alain's and Marion's skin. But an equally important element is ambiance, the music and the place, which go together: Giannoli's warm acceptance of the provincial world of Clermont Ferrand is in harmony with the seriousness with which Alain and the film itself take the sometimes corny, sometimes subtly poetic chansons that it's Alain's life's work to deliver, to make people dance. The Singer keeps coming back to Alain's world, his faithful wife-manager Michèle (Christine Citti), to his struggle to survive and maintain his dignity, his respect for the songs. When he sings a love song it has to be real; he has to mean it; he must sing it for himself. If you open yourself to the film's bittersweet mood and it works for you, you will also open yourself to the songs and welcome them into your heart.
The Singer is a film that breathes. Its beauty is that it has no easy tragedies or easy resolutions; that things are almost as uncertain between Alain and Marion at the end as they were that first night when she sat in front of him blonde and bright, like a diamond in a red dress. Giannoli is a young director who works with independence and drive. His Les corps impatients was a distinctive and risk-taking film but this one is a leap forward beyond passion and conviction to larger conception, deeper commitment and broader communication. This time Giannoli's done something that can reach a lot of people. Depardieu does his own singing, and his performance as Alain Moreau is one of the best things he's done in a long time at least over a decade and a great thing it is. This was a magnificent opportunity for Cécile de France and she's met it with her best and richest performance to date. It's a tribute to both actors work in The Singer that you find it hard to separate either them from their characters. The film ends with a song, "Quand j'étais chanteur," when I was a singer. "Je m'éclatais comme une bête quand j'étais chanteur," I had a hell of a good time when I was a singer. The Singer is one of those films that isn't putting on a show for you: it's inviting you to come in and hang around a while.