Tuesday, March 02, 2021

"Un moment d'égarement": review

Titled "One Wild Moment" in English, "Un moment d'égarement" is a 2015 film directed by  Jean-François Richet.  It's a remake of a 1977 film with the same title, and if you've seen the 80s-era US remake of the 1977 original, "Blame It On Rio," then you know the basic story:  two fathers travel with their teen daughters to a lovely vacation spot; one daughter falls in lust with the other father; a snake crawls repeatedly into a hole, and then the rest of the story is about the fallout from that indiscretion.  In "Blame It On Rio" (which starred Michael Caine as the Lolita-banging dad), the film ends almost in the manner of a Shakespearean comedy:  pretty much everyone is happy, and the situation has come to a tidy conclusion.  In the 2015 film, the ending is positively creepy, with the little nymphomaniac staring meaningfully at the man she fucked right before we fade to black and roll the end credits.

I'll give the movie a thumbs-up for recruiting a good stable of actors.  Vincent Cassel is in the Michael Caine role as Laurent, the divorced-but-still-horny dad who gives in to temptation.  Acting giant François Cluzet (France's answer to Dustin Hoffman) plays Laurent's friend Antoine—a fussy, combative, insecure man currently going through marital problems of his own.  Antoine's daughter Louna, who seduces Laurent, is played by Lola Le Lann.  Louna's friend (and Antoine's daughter) Marie is played by Alice Isaaz.  

"Un moment d'égarement" utterly lacks substance.  It's a dramedy that, in the grand French cinematic tradition, gives us an opportunity to ogle a fair bit of tits and ass as Louna shakes her naked booty and flashes some nipple at Laurent.  As with the other two versions of this story, the sex happens, and then we have to watch as the characters figure out whether to hide or reveal the truth of what occurred, and what to do about their feelings (or lack of feelings) for each other.  As I noted above, this 2015 version of the story goes in an ambiguous direction, leaving several basic questions unresolved:  has Laurent managed to shake Louna off?  Is Louna the type of psycho who won't be deterred from her prize, even if her pursuit of a much older man angers her already-insecure father?  Has Marie forgiven her father for being a creepy old perv who bangs little teenage girls?

Ultimately, the movie failed to make me interested in a single one of the above questions.  It sucked.  It sucked harder than Louna was sucking Laurent.  (Okay, that's a bad joke:  I don't recall there being a blowjob scene anywhere in the story.)  Roger Ebert famously shat on "Blame It On Rio" when it came out; the movie certainly wasn't one of Michael Caine's more stellar efforts.  And I'm afraid the same goes for veteran actors Cassel and Cluzet.  This one isn't any sort of feather in the cap.



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