User Reviews

At last a REAL charming fantasy about a boy called Charley that's sugar free. Cedric Kahn's 'L'Avion' was, I suspect, made for the cost of about one reel of Tim gone-for-a-Burton's schmaltz that has successfully fooled a lot of people who should really know better that it's a half decent film. If small boys involved in charming albeit slightly fantastic situations are your thing then check this one out and forget that chocolate factory. Vincent Lindon, sans moustache, is husband to the luminous Isabelle Carre and father to Charley to whom he has promised a bicycle but brings instead a model airplane. Soon after that Pierre (Lindon) is killed and soon after THAT the model airplane becomes animated as if representing the spirit of the dead father. This is light years away from Kahn's last At Bat which was the stylish thriller Feux Rouges and he seems to be equally at home in both genres. Isabelle Carre will probably never get another part as good as Se Souvenirs des belles choses which was, of course, a once-in-a-lifetime role but she brings a quiet, gentle luminosity to everything she does as in this role of a young widow trying to deal with a child who may or may not be hallucinating. One of the strengths of this film is that it's not just the boy who experiences the strange inexplicable powers of the toy. Initially Charley's school friend, then his mother and finally authority figures all see and/or suffer the wrath of the plane. If there is at the end perhaps a nod to the if-you-build-it-he-will-come aspect of Field of Dreams that is not necessarily a bad thing - and incidentally FOD was yet ANOTHER example Burton would do well to study. It's dollars to donuts that the hype surrounding Burton's movie will totally eclipse any PR that this ten times better film will receive which makes it, alas, one for connoisseurs only.