Chris Knipp
05-24-2014, 11:25 AM
Cédric Klapisch: Chinese Puzzle (2014)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/chinesepuzzle.jpg
CÉCILE DE FRANCE, ROMAIN DURIS, KELLY REILLY, AUDREY TAUTOU IN CHINESE PUZZLE: NEW YORK IN HEIGHTENED COLORS
It's complicated (but not necessarily deep)
Klapisch's third in a series about Xavier Rousseau (Romain Duris), an economics student turned ghost writer turned successful novelist, is a farcical jumble of ruses and the women in his life that would make little sense if it were not for the director's genial enthusiasm for his hero's adventures and his ability to recycle characters and weave in new ones. A Frenchman's vibrant depiction of a colorful New York adds visual flair: in fact, the celebratory 35mm Technicolor images of the interiors, bridges, and graffiti-strewn walls of Manhattan and Brooklyn, an adrenaline-shot contrast with the grey elegance of Paris, are the real stars of this picture. It would have been nice to bring together more of the cast of the first two films, L'Auberge Espagnole (2002) and The Russian Dolls (2004), whose international camaraderie did much to offset the limitations of Duris' character. Here, he seems little more than a pawn for plot twists. And it's all so complicated and essentially aimless that it feels too long, even though Auberge and Dolls were actually a bit longer. Twelve years have passed since the first film, but Xavier has aged more rapidly, going from 20 in Barcelona to 40 now. While in Auberge they were students, and Dolls ended in marriage, now things have to get more serious. But this is where Klapisch drops the ball, since he puts Xavier in a situation that makes him seem as unformed and foundering as ever; and nobody's life is viewed in any particular depth. Still, Chinese Puzzle retains the series' buoyant rhythm and ability to entertain. And though he is not given anything solid in the way of character development, the maturity Romain Duris has gained and the depth he has acquired as an actor and a person give Xavier charisma he lacked in Auberge.
In the first film the uptight Xavier grows up and gains a band of comrades through the Barcelona Erasmus international student program. We meet his up-front lesbian pal Isabelle (Cécile de France) and get visits from his fussy on-and-off girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tautou). And he gets powerfully drawn to the dramatic redhead from England, Wendy (Kelly Reilly), whose quirky and hilariously un-PC boyfriend William (Kevin Bishop) is central to the romance and marriage of Russian Dolls, and is sorely missed in this third episode. Now, like cliché modern 40-year-olds, Wendy and Xavier are divorced, and share contacts with their two little kids. When Wendy decides to leave Paris and move to New York with the kids to be with a new boyfriend, a rich American about twice the size of the diminutive Xavier, he chooses to move there too so he can remain present as his children's father. He does this on a travel visa, with no particular game plan.
This makes for lots of complications, and in-your-face introductions to the Big Apple. Klapisch himself studied filmmaking at NYU and is revisiting old haunts that now are much changed (when Xavier's distant father revisits New York, where he was still in love with his mother, Klapish's own experience is paralleled). Klapisch chooses to plant Xavier in Chinatown because that was where he lived. But this situation also sends Xavier back to scratch. The justification is that he's a writer who's going to produce a book out of his adventures -- whose progress he constantly reviews via Skype with his rotund publisher. As it happens Isabelle is also living in NYC with a Chinese-American girlfriend, in a fabulously large loft. It's the girlfriend who provides Xavier with a cheap place to live in Chinatown. Needless to say Martine reappears, with a couple of kids of her own. To try to get a work permit Xavier uses a cheap lawyer and a fake marriage. It's ingenious, and preposterous, and fun, but superficial. The specific details of the farcical complications ought to be left for the viewer to discover.
It is interesting and visually glorious to see New York through sympathetic French eyes, and in many ways this is a charming celebration of the city. But it hasn't as much human warmth as L'Auberge Espagnole, which was full of the discovery of people and cultures, and of Russian Dolls, which throbbed with romance and reunion, complicated sex lives, and the joys and tears of marriage. Age 40 as seen in Chinese Puzzle seems like treading water and is almost a step backward. If there's ever a later episode, it'll need to take more chances and get more real. These films are not Michael Apted's "Up" series -- they're lighthearted inventions, not documentaries -- and they begin to lack the compulsive watchableness of real life. But they have brought delight, and anyone who's enjoyed the earlier ones will have to see this one -- or any subsequent ones. It is moving for us, and for the actors themselves, to see them aging.
Chinese Puzzle/Casse-tête chinois, 117 mins., in French and English with some Chinese, debuted in August 2013 and showed in various festivals, including London and San Francisco. It opened in France Dec. 3013 and the US 16 May 2014 (Puzzle: Allociné press rating 3.4, Metacritic: 66; Dolls: Allocine 3.8, Metacritic 67; Auberge: Allocine 3.6, Metacritic 65 -- and this is right: Dolls winds up being the best and richest of the three) .
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/casseteteposter.jpg
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/chinesepuzzle.jpg
CÉCILE DE FRANCE, ROMAIN DURIS, KELLY REILLY, AUDREY TAUTOU IN CHINESE PUZZLE: NEW YORK IN HEIGHTENED COLORS
It's complicated (but not necessarily deep)
Klapisch's third in a series about Xavier Rousseau (Romain Duris), an economics student turned ghost writer turned successful novelist, is a farcical jumble of ruses and the women in his life that would make little sense if it were not for the director's genial enthusiasm for his hero's adventures and his ability to recycle characters and weave in new ones. A Frenchman's vibrant depiction of a colorful New York adds visual flair: in fact, the celebratory 35mm Technicolor images of the interiors, bridges, and graffiti-strewn walls of Manhattan and Brooklyn, an adrenaline-shot contrast with the grey elegance of Paris, are the real stars of this picture. It would have been nice to bring together more of the cast of the first two films, L'Auberge Espagnole (2002) and The Russian Dolls (2004), whose international camaraderie did much to offset the limitations of Duris' character. Here, he seems little more than a pawn for plot twists. And it's all so complicated and essentially aimless that it feels too long, even though Auberge and Dolls were actually a bit longer. Twelve years have passed since the first film, but Xavier has aged more rapidly, going from 20 in Barcelona to 40 now. While in Auberge they were students, and Dolls ended in marriage, now things have to get more serious. But this is where Klapisch drops the ball, since he puts Xavier in a situation that makes him seem as unformed and foundering as ever; and nobody's life is viewed in any particular depth. Still, Chinese Puzzle retains the series' buoyant rhythm and ability to entertain. And though he is not given anything solid in the way of character development, the maturity Romain Duris has gained and the depth he has acquired as an actor and a person give Xavier charisma he lacked in Auberge.
In the first film the uptight Xavier grows up and gains a band of comrades through the Barcelona Erasmus international student program. We meet his up-front lesbian pal Isabelle (Cécile de France) and get visits from his fussy on-and-off girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tautou). And he gets powerfully drawn to the dramatic redhead from England, Wendy (Kelly Reilly), whose quirky and hilariously un-PC boyfriend William (Kevin Bishop) is central to the romance and marriage of Russian Dolls, and is sorely missed in this third episode. Now, like cliché modern 40-year-olds, Wendy and Xavier are divorced, and share contacts with their two little kids. When Wendy decides to leave Paris and move to New York with the kids to be with a new boyfriend, a rich American about twice the size of the diminutive Xavier, he chooses to move there too so he can remain present as his children's father. He does this on a travel visa, with no particular game plan.
This makes for lots of complications, and in-your-face introductions to the Big Apple. Klapisch himself studied filmmaking at NYU and is revisiting old haunts that now are much changed (when Xavier's distant father revisits New York, where he was still in love with his mother, Klapish's own experience is paralleled). Klapisch chooses to plant Xavier in Chinatown because that was where he lived. But this situation also sends Xavier back to scratch. The justification is that he's a writer who's going to produce a book out of his adventures -- whose progress he constantly reviews via Skype with his rotund publisher. As it happens Isabelle is also living in NYC with a Chinese-American girlfriend, in a fabulously large loft. It's the girlfriend who provides Xavier with a cheap place to live in Chinatown. Needless to say Martine reappears, with a couple of kids of her own. To try to get a work permit Xavier uses a cheap lawyer and a fake marriage. It's ingenious, and preposterous, and fun, but superficial. The specific details of the farcical complications ought to be left for the viewer to discover.
It is interesting and visually glorious to see New York through sympathetic French eyes, and in many ways this is a charming celebration of the city. But it hasn't as much human warmth as L'Auberge Espagnole, which was full of the discovery of people and cultures, and of Russian Dolls, which throbbed with romance and reunion, complicated sex lives, and the joys and tears of marriage. Age 40 as seen in Chinese Puzzle seems like treading water and is almost a step backward. If there's ever a later episode, it'll need to take more chances and get more real. These films are not Michael Apted's "Up" series -- they're lighthearted inventions, not documentaries -- and they begin to lack the compulsive watchableness of real life. But they have brought delight, and anyone who's enjoyed the earlier ones will have to see this one -- or any subsequent ones. It is moving for us, and for the actors themselves, to see them aging.
Chinese Puzzle/Casse-tête chinois, 117 mins., in French and English with some Chinese, debuted in August 2013 and showed in various festivals, including London and San Francisco. It opened in France Dec. 3013 and the US 16 May 2014 (Puzzle: Allociné press rating 3.4, Metacritic: 66; Dolls: Allocine 3.8, Metacritic 67; Auberge: Allocine 3.6, Metacritic 65 -- and this is right: Dolls winds up being the best and richest of the three) .
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/casseteteposter.jpg