Two or three very good jokes (the scene in which Belmondo is accosted by a creditor and they end up hurling insults at each other as they cross the road in different directions, and the sequence in which so many people bludge a light off Belmondo's cigarette, he ends up with an unsmokable stub) and a very promising opening give little indication of the seemingly endless dreariness to come when Jean-Claude Brialy cycles on to the scene and the characters settle down to a boring array of routine recriminations in the one dreary set. It looks like the producer was unable to afford only two indoor sets. Admittedly, the director has tried to circumvent the shortage with a bit of location work, but this is neither skillfully chosen nor cleverly employed. Worse still, the obviously hand-held camera wobbles to an incredible degree. No doubt, a lot of this was done deliberately in order to disguise the ineptness of the direction and the lack of francs in the producer's pocket. But there was really no need for this display of deliberate ineptitude. The rest of the movie in itself provides evidence enough. And to make matters worse, Anna Karina acts like a wet rag, nothing like the delightfully animated personality she unveiled in "She'll Have To Go".
Review of A Woman Is a Woman
