If that happens, he will be a lucky man indeed. He has said this will probably be his last film it is possible that he will go out on a high. You could say that Woody lucked out with Poupaud, although he would probably respond that he made his own luck there. And as with the ghastly Match Point – which was hailed in its day as a return to form and was a hit, despite the merry hell it played with its English setting – he may even be lucky enough to find that this divertissement will slip down as easily as a macaron.Ĭoup de Chance isn’t good, but it may just have enough that is familiar from the director’s long back catalog to please those who wish they really were living in 1953, a hokey 2023, or whatever year it is in WoodyWorld. Even with a straight face, he seems to breathe irony. The men fare better, particularly Poupaud, who manages to give even his most ridiculous lines some force while simultaneously conveying the sense that he knows how absurd they are. De Laage works hard at evoking the magically attractive presence Jean claims she has, but she is hardly more than a beautiful cipher, less trophy wife than trophy actress. Bits of business make no sense – lines from one scene are repeated almost verbatim in the next Fanny, in common with too many of Woody’s women, is largely a blank. Piano grooves and Storaro’s inventiveness cannot compensate, however, for this film’s lazy writing. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro opens up spaces – the interior of the Fourniers’ apartment, which is ingeniously unfolded before us to show the expanse of several rooms at once – before snapping them shut, following the characters closely through corridors that become as confining as rat-races, or the rails of the vintage model railway, squeezed into one of the apartment’s rooms, that Jean likes to show off to visitors. Whenever grief or horror threaten to crack the meringue, the irresistible groove of jazz classic “Cantaloupe Island” pipes up to get us back into the swing – which works, although you may wonder at how much work it’s obliged to do. One is the extent to which its crisp, light tone relies largely on Herbie Hancock. Several aspects of Coup de Chance are immediately striking. You know, the kind of thing French people talk about. We’re not supposed to care, however true to his Gallic setting, Woody maintains an insistent insouciance, laced with some light philosophical musing on the role of chance in our lives. Someone else seems set to get away with it. He brings his usual potpourri of plot points – a rich couple, infidelity, an interfering mother-in-law, the aperçu that money and bookish bohemianism make restive bedfellows – to this new tale, along with some Match Point-style malfeasance. At the grand age of 87, he has made his first film in the French language, for which all due kudos. But does any actual modern man, no matter how rich and unfathomably French, come home from work in 2023 to request a cognac from his wife, who then calls out to the maid to bring Monsieur a cognac while she configures herself into a glamour position on the couch? Is this actually 1953? Or maybe 1923 – the Gatsby era, where Woody Allen is clearly a very enthusiastic visitor?Ĭoup de Chance is Woody Allen’s 50 th feature film. They’re Parisian, which means that they are already fantasy figurines in the European curiosity shop of Woody Allen’s imagination. Exactly who are these people? They’re rich, obviously.
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