Movie Review: Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris (2022)

Genre: Dramedy  

Director: Anthony Fabian  

Starring: Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista, Lucas Bravo  
Running Time: 115 minutes  

Synopsis: In London of 1957, middle-aged cleaning lady Ada Harris (Lesley Manville) finally comes to terms with the wartime death of her husband. After spotting an expensive Dior gown in a client's wardrobe, Ada saves every penny and travels to Paris, intent on buying a haute couture dress for herself. Her planned one-day quest extends into a whirlwind week, as she gets involved with House of Dior staff members including the stern directress Mme Colbert (Isabelle Huppert), thoughtful accountant André Fauvel (Lucas Bravo), and unhappy model Natasha (Alba Baptista). Ada also attracts the attention of widower Marquis de Chassagne (Lambert Wilson).

What Works Well: The adaptation of Paul Gallico's 1958 novel is a winsome collection of good intentions traversing cultural and class divides. Definitely sweet and fluffy but without stepping over sentimentality limits, the narrative explores later-in-life opportunities for romance, unlikely friendships, the role and meaning of expensive fashion, and the economic and sometimes exploitive realities behind glitzy facades. Impressively, Mrs. Harris' adventure even encompasses the business imperative to evolve. Lesley Manville's central performance stems from subtle yet pragmatic steeliness, while the pleasing aesthetics of late-1950s London and Paris neighbourhoods add visual appeal.

What Does Not Work As Well: Some sequences surrender to Dior advertorials, while the running time unnecessarily drags towards the two hour mark.

Key Quote:

Mme Colbert: A Dior dress is designed to astonish. How would you do that, Mrs. Harris?



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Louder Than Bombs (2015)

A drama about unspoken truths eroding family ties, Louder Than Bombs quietly pokes at the tender scars of tragedy.

Renowned photojournalist Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert) covered the world's hotspots for the New York Times. She died in a car crash soon after retiring, leaving behind her husband Gene (Gabriel Byrne) and two teenage sons Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and the younger Conrad (Devin Druid). Several years later, a gallery retrospective of her photos is being planned, and Isabelle's ex-colleague Richard (David Strathairn) is writing a comprehensive remembrance article, in which he will reveal her death was a suicide.

Jonah is now a college professor married to Amy (Megan Ketch), and they have a newborn child. The troubled and non-communicative Conrad still lives with his dad and is addicted to video games. Jonah visits Gene and Conrad to help sort through Isabelle's belongings, revealing the hidden emotional pain still haunting the family.

An exploration of lies and half-truths that appear convenient but only lead to more difficult junctures, Louder Than Bombs achieves the desired discomfort despite uneven plotting. Director Joachim Trier (who co-wrote the screenplay with Eskil Vogt) creates intrigue by gradually revealing multiple sources of unease gnawing at the Reed family, but the multi-pronged insecurities compete for attention.

The promising material splits into at least three streams, and ultimately meanders into shallowness. Gene is a grieving husband and a failed actor who resented Isabelle's globe-trotting success but also feels responsible for pressuring her into career abandonment. Jonah is a smug new parent, but his young marriage to Amy is already in trouble. Conrad is a moody student at the edge of being labelled a danger to himself and his high school, but is also attracted to classmate Melanie (Ruby Jerins). All three are failing to communicate and hiding their feelings from themselves and each other. As the revelatory article draws near, Conrad makes the most progress, his creativity offering an outlet.

In flashbacks, the fourth and perhaps most compelling character is brought in focus. Isabelle was torn between a career that splashed her photos and name across the world, and a family where she felt like an intruder. Only some of her scars were visible, and she was also hiding her own secrets. Isabelle's story makes Louder Than Bombs a good companion piece to 2013's A Thousand Times Good Night.

The cast members deliver earnest performances consistent with the downbeat mood. But hampered by overlapping layers of pretense, the characters are only allowed to aim for safe landings. Louder Than Bombs settles for exposing rather than elaborating on multiple cracks in a family's foundation.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Bedroom Window (1987)

A serial killer mystery with erotic undertones, The Bedroom Window is perforated with characters behaving as foolishly as possible to continuously worsen their predicament.

In Baltimore, young executive Terry Lambert (Steve Guttenberg) starts a torrid affair with Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert), the wife of his boss Collin Wentworth (Paul Shenar). Near 2am, Sylvia witnesses an assault in progress in the park outside Terry's bedroom window. The assailant flees and the victim Denise (Elizabeth McGovern) escapes serious harm. 

Not willing to reveal her affair, Sylvia is reluctant to come forward and identify the assailant. When Terry learns another woman was killed nearby on the same night, he phones the police pretending to have himself witnessed the attack. But the small distortion of the truth spirals into something much more serious when Terry is called to identify the suspect in a police line-up. He then takes an interest in the creepy Carl Henderson (Brad Greenquist), who matches the assailant's description. Another young woman is murdered, and Terry finds himself caught in a web of lies.

A second-rate thriller of sorts and a half-hearted attempt to channel elements from Rear Window, The Bedroom Window cannot escape a feeble script. Regardless of comedian Steve Guttenberg stumbling into a dramatic role, Terry as a protagonist generates no sympathy. From initiating a career-ending affair with the wife of his boss to lying to the police then perjuring himself on the witness stand, he opts for every bone-headed move available to him. He is almost matched for incompetence by a couple of doofus detectives incapable of investigating the obvious.

Writer and director Curtis Hanson (adapting the book by Anne Holden) takes the blame for ploughing ahead with intentions rather than substance. Sidestepping the logic holes are some shiny visual touches, Gilbert Taylor's nighttime cinematography surpassing the material, and a couple of nightclub scenes capture opposite ends of society enjoying nights out under a predator's menacing gaze. And in one courtroom scene, Wallace Shawn as a defence lawyer enlivens proceedings with a snarky if all too easy demonstration of why basic smarts do matter.

The Bedroom Window tries for slick and sexy, but should have just kept the lights off.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Greta (2018)

A psychological suspense drama, Greta delivers creepy enjoyment despite some clunky moments.

In New York City, Frances (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a twentysomething transplanted Bostonian who recently lost her mother and is enduring a strained relationship with her father. She works as a restaurant server and lives with her friend Erica (Maika Monroe). Frances finds an elegant handbag on the subway system and returns it to its owner, the elderly and lonely piano teacher Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert).

Frances starts a friendship with Greta and learns her husband has passed away and her daughter is away studying music in Paris. The two women establish a warm bond and Frances ignores Erica's warning that she may be getting too emotionally close to Greta as a substitute mother. But when Frances stumbles upon a creepy discovery in the older woman's closet, everything changes.

Starting off as a placid story about loss, loneliness and friendship, Greta gradually works its way towards Hitchcockian suspense bordering on horror territory. Director Neil Jordan co-wrote the script with Ray Wright, and demonstrates patience to introduce Frances, Greta and Erica as well-rounded characters, enhancing the emotional impact once peril is unleashed.

From the moment Frances awakens to evidence of deception, the tension mounts steadily with small acts of menacing harassment pointing to a deeply disturbed psyche. Jordan keeps the settings intimate, Greta's apartment a perfect trinket-laden psychological labyrinth, the subway system tunnels not offering any reprieve. Frances is nudged into a densifying web of trouble, Greta busily weaving an inescapable emotional and physical trap to try and fill the void in her soul.

Despite the delectable mood of dread, Jordan cannot avoid a few clunky moments and implausible character actions. On more than one occasion Frances passes up disengagement opportunities and makes blatantly ill-considered decisions solely designed to prolong the tension and sink her deeper into trouble. And Greta's behaviour unravels rather quickly towards flighty territory, testing internal consistency.

But bolstered by three excellent central performances, Greta survives the bumps. Isabelle Huppert expertly works towards the darkest corners of a twisted mind, and Chloë Grace Moretz finds the right notes as a victim experiencing the hazardous underbelly of innocent benevolence. Maika Monroe is a sharp presence as the trusty friend instinctively aware of the big city's inherent risks. The three leads are supported in small roles by Colm Feore as Frances' father and Stephen Rea as a private investigator.

In surreptitious style, Greta surveys the scope of friendship: from suffocation to salvation.



All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Isabelle Huppert

All movies starring Isabelle Huppert and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Heaven's Gate (1980)

The Bedroom Window (1987)

Amour (2012)

Dead Man Down (2013)

Louder Than Bombs (2015)

Elle (2016)

Greta (2018)

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris (2022)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Elle (2016)

A drama about rape and relationships past and present intertwined in a grotesque embrace, Elle features an intriguing central character and a hypnotic Isabelle Huppert performance.

In France, middle-aged Michèle (Huppert) is raped in her home by a masked assailant. She shakes off the attack, does not report it, and carries on while paying special attention to the men in her life.When she was a 10 year old girl, Michèle became infamous as the daughter of a mass murderer, who is now imprisoned for life but with an upcoming parole hearing. Now she deeply resents her mother Irène, who lives a carefree life and seeks sexual gratification with younger men.

Michèle co-runs a gaming software company with her friend Anna and is carrying on a passionless sexual affair with Anna's smug husband Robert. She has a troubled relationship with her son Vincent and his pregnant girlfriend Josie. She remains in touch with her ex-husband Richard, a once-famous writer, and also flirts with her married neighbour Patrick. When the rapist attempts to strike again, Michèle is more ready to fight back, and welcomes an unexpected new chapter in her life.

An adaptation of the book Oh... by Philippe Djian and directed by Paul Verhoeven, Elle thrives off the mysterious energy of its central character. Although full of violence, manipulation and repressed anger, the film is essentially a single character study, and while Michèle is surrounded by a large group of friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers and acquaintances, they are all here to serve her story. Verhoeven places his trust in his lead character and star actress to carry the film, and Elle delivers a mostly compelling drama.

Michèle's composed reaction to being raped in her own living room is initially remarkable, and ignites revelations about her background introduced by Verhoeven in tantalizing morsels and at a relaxed pace. Michèle can shrug off the rape because she has experienced something much worse and deployed all her emotional defences, and a result has a cold and calculating attitude towards herself and others, including her closest family members.

With the rape just another example of the brutality men are capable of, Michèle goes about methodically investigating the who and the why, not necessarily for any plotted revenge reasons but to better understand the beast that ruined her since childhood. The film links sexuality, religion, psychological dominance and violence, and Michèle charts her course carefully through examples past and present of these forces continuously colliding.

The sub-plots swirling around the central character are plentiful but short-changed. The preponderance of inter-linked characters may work well in book form and to enhance the perpetrator mystery, but on-screen the supporting cast remain flat and superficial. The quantity over quality contributes to a less than satisfying final third as Verhoeven rushes to find pat conclusions for everyone, with some sudden, highly unconvincing resolutions scattered into every corner.

But Elle is never less than watchable thanks to a superlative Isabelle Huppert performance. Finding the unlikely reaction to every provocation and conveying a rage against life's monstrous injustices through icy coldness, Huppert catapults Michèle above all atrocities, on her own terms.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Heaven's Gate (1980)

An epic and lyrical western, Heaven's Gate is nearly as bad as its catastrophic reputation.

Twenty years after graduating from Harvard, James Averill (Kris Kristofferson) is the Marshal of Johnson County, Wyoming. Poor European immigrants are arriving in large numbers to settle and farm the land, creating tensions with a cattlemen's Association led by Frank Canton (Sam Waterston). James' intellectual classmate from Harvard William Irvine (John Hurt) is part of Canton's entourage, but frequently drunk. In the town of Casper, a large number of men assemble, recruited as hired guns by the Association. A target list of 125 settlers is drawn up and a $50 bounty is offered on each head.

Nathan Champion (Christopher Walken) is one of the gunmen, but he tries to scare off the settlers rather than kill them. He also competes with James for the attention of Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert), the local whore and James' lover. Local businessman John L. Bridges (Jeff Bridges) allies himself with the settlers. As Canton's men start to hunt down their targets, the immigrants have to find ways to fight back and the situation escalates towards an all-out war.

Written and directed by Michael Cimino and loosely based on the actual events of the Johnson County War, Heaven's Gate is legendary for all the wrong reasons. Four times over budget, one year late, beset by production problems including rampant animal cruelty, ridiculously long at 3 hours and 40 minutes, and ultimately a financial disaster that hastened the demise of studio United Artists, the film comprehensively ended the New Hollywood era, killing off the concept of celebrated directors having unchecked creative control.

Cimino, fresh off the unexpected success of The Deer Hunter, appeared intent on out-doing Francis Ford Coppola. He exhibited ultra-egotistical on-set behaviour and seemed to measure his achievements by length of film, ending the production at 1.3 million feet (220 hours) to exceed Coppola's Apocalypse Now. The Heaven's Gate music is also clearly derived from The Godfather theme.

All of which would be forgiven and excused if the final on-screen product was any good, but it's not. Heaven's Gate has perhaps 90 minutes of story and 130 minutes of insufferable bloat. Countless scenes contribute nothing to the narrative, and every scene, whether relevant or not, runs for many minutes longer than necessary. The Harvard graduation and waltz, the rollerblading dance, the endless scenes of agitated crowds, the cockfight and the epilogue are some of the more famous examples of the bilge suffocating the film.

To add to the misery, despite the mammoth length the film is fundamentally lacking in any character depth or development. Averill, Champion and Ella are the three main characters, and they remain plastic creations throughout, generating no emotion or empathy, stock passengers in their own story. Kristofferson, Walken and Huppert can all be fine actors, but they drown in nothingness where time and space stand still. Plenty of deathly slow scenes come and go with barely any dialogue, the characters part of the scenery or worse, swallowed by the armies of extras.

Filmed entirely on location and mostly in Montana, the film carries a sickly brown-yellow tinge throughout, taking away from the beautiful epic and rustic settings and the elaborate framing. The sound quality is frequently atrocious, with large stretches of dialogue inaudible and incomprehensible. The ill-defined immigrants speak and shout in their own language, sometimes for minutes on end, with no subtitles.

The final hour does pick up as Cimino finally bears down and the conflict erupts into the open, but redemption is out of reach. Heaven's Gate is an arduous ode to unchecked self-admiration.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Amour (2012)

A drama about love at the end of life, Amour is an unblinking view of the slow descent into the big sleep.

In Paris, firefighters break into a locked apartment and find an elderly woman passed away on the bed, surrounded by flowers. The rest of the film is one long flashback. Georges and Anne (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are a retired couple living in the apartment, both former piano teachers. Soon after attending a concert by one of Anne former students, she suffers a stroke. An operation to unblock an artery goes wrong and Anne is left paralyzed on one side. Anne makes Georges promise to never take her back to the hospital.

With Anne confined to a wheelchair, Georges becomes her full-time caregiver. Their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) is an occasional visitor, and she struggles to come to terms with what her parents are going through. Anne expresses her wishes to die, but then suffers another stroke and is bedridden, barely able to communicate. Georges seeks the help of in-home nurses, as the physical and emotional burden on him escalates.

While many films look at couples falling in love at the early stages of a relationship, Amour settles down at the other end of couplehood. With their careers behind them and their children now adults,  Georges and Anne are in their darkening twilight, still deeply in love and now having to deal with what it means for life to seep away. This is a deeply affecting film tackling an often ignored subject, at a stage in the human journey where the remaining options are limited and exceptionally challenging.

Director Michael Haneke wrote the film based on personal family experience and does not hurry any of the events or actions. He sets up his cameras in static positions and allows the drama to unfold in exceptionally long takes, saturating the screen with gravity and emotion, most of the film taking place in the spacious Parisian apartment. Time passes slowly in the world of Georges and Anne. Shuffling from room to room is an ordeal, transitioning from wheelchair to chair is an achievement. The cameras watch patiently, intruding onto the couple's privacy without judgment but with inescapable intensity as the bond between Georges and Anne is repeatedly tested.

Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, 82 and 84 years old respectively, deliver stunning performances. Trintignant is all stoic resilience as Georges navigates around the reality that his partner is ebbing away. Riva has a longer journey in her portrayal of Anne, a proud woman sensing the end and doing her best to exert a level of control, but then held captive by her body's sequential failure.

A few events that mark Anne's deterioration happen off-screen, but for the most part, Amour is unflinching. With cold efficiency Haneke invades Anne's most intimate humiliations as she loses the ability to physically look after herself. Her descent into the finality of death is harrowing, and as the end draws near, love is the only survivor.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Dead Man Down (2013)

A revenge crime thriller, Dead Man Down benefits from a focus on characters and a suitably grim mood.

In New York City, Victor (Colin Farrell) and his partner Darcy (Dominic Cooper) are violent gang members, part of the crew run by crime boss Alphonse (Terrence Howard). However, while pretending to be a loyal foot soldier, Victor is also on a secret and personal revenge mission, seeking retribution against Alphonse for the murder of his wife and child two years earlier.

Victor meets his neighbour Beatrice (Noomi Rapace), who lives with her mother (Isabelle Huppert). Beatrice was the victim of an accident caused by a drunk driver that left her with permanent facial scars. Having witnessed Victor commit a murder in his apartment, she demands that he kill the drunk driver, who got away with a light sentence. With Darcy investigating who is behind the threats against Alphonse, Victor has to quickly advance his complex retribution and satisfy Beatrice before his cover is blown.

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev, Dead Man Down is better than it needed to be. Oplev restricts the action set pieces to just a few punchy moments at the start, middle, and end, and keeps them short if a bit muddled in execution. Plenty of room is therefore created for a complex double revenge plot to unfurl from the middle outwards, and the characters of Victor and Beatrice occupy centre stage.

The story of Victor plotting an elaborate payback contains a compelling backstory and a patient build-up, while Beatrice is an intriguing woman, scarred physically but more deeply damaged emotionally. The two combine to create an unusually provocative duo with overlapping objectives. When the inevitable relationship evolves between them, their rage is also cast in a new light.

None of which is to say that Dead Man Down doesn't contain glaring faults. Gangster stereotypes and narrative shortcuts litter the screen, plot holes waltz through the film, and New York City is somehow suddenly devoid of law enforcement. Early in the story a gangland massacre takes place, with an exchange of gunfire worthy of a war zone, and yet none of the perpetrators are ever remotely bothered by any sort of investigation.

Oplev skips past the shortcomings with an appealing dark aesthetic, many of the scenes taking place at dusk or later, with dark blues and artificial lighting complementing the underworld milieu. And the quality of the cast also helps to ride out the weaker moments. Colin Farrell's generally expressionless persona is well suited to the secretive and scheming Victor, while Noomi Rapace matches Farrell with her sense of determined despondency. Isabelle Huppert as Beatrice's mostly deaf mother adds depth to Beatrice's domesticity. Veterans Armand Assante and F. Murray Abraham have small supporting roles.

A reasonably potent mix of action and layered plot, Dead Man Down enjoys more ups than downs.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.