Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants (2004)
Yönetmen Yvan Attal
Yapım :2004 Ülke : Fransa Tür : Drama Süre : 100 dakika IMDB Puan : 6.5/10 IMDB ID: tt0381270
A.K.A ...And They Lived Happily Ever After
Oyuncular Charlotte Gainsbourg - Gabrielle Yvan Attal - Vincent Alain Chabat - Georges Alain Cohen - Fred Emmanuelle Seigner - Nathalie Angie David - La maîtresse Anouk Aimée - La mère de Vincent Claude Berri - Le père de Vincent Aurore Clément - La mère de la maîtresse de Vincent Marie-Sophie Wilson - Florence (as Marie-Sophie Wilson-Carr)
Bilgi :Vincent (director Yvan Attal) and his friends George (Alain Chabat) and Fred
(Alain Cohen) all want something that they do not have. Together they
represent the three possibilities open to a man (at least in the world of Attal’s
screenplay) when it comes to a relationship. Fred is the no-commitment guy,
sleeping his way around town but really wanting to find a soul-mate, settle down
and have children. George is loyally faithful to his rather feminist wife, though he
often wonders why, since she seems bent on making his life quite impossible. In
Fred and George’s eyes, they would love to be in Vincent’s position: he seems
happily married to Gabrielle (Charlotte Gainsbourgh, also Attal’s wife in real life),
though in fact Vincent is seeing someone else at the same time. Being happily
married does not seem to be an option.
This set-up has a lot of potential, none of which is fully exploited as the film
unfolds. The ‘revelation’ that Vincent is seeing someone else is not made
straight away, and it takes a lot of time before all the characters and their
relationships are firmly established for the audience. This leads to a lack of
urgency and focus that is hard to repair when we have finally understood who
wants what and who is together with whom. It never really chooses between
being a film about the three male friends’ point-of-view or a film that lends equal
weight to Gabrielle and Vincent, both struggling in their marriage. It is a bit of
everything, which in the end weakens everything as the audience grows
increasingly clueless as to where their sympathy should lie.
The characters draw more life from the actors’ performances than from what
they are given to do and say, with Charlotte Gainsbourgh really imbuing
Gabrielle with a zest for life that is noteworthy, seen that she suspects her
husband of having an affair. But then again, who would not love life after a
chance encounter with a stranger who looks and acts just like Johnny Depp?
There is some humour also, mostly derived from poor George’s situation, and
even though some of the humour did work for me, much of it will be over one’s
head if one does not speak French.
Something I did like was how Attal managed to include many ‘normal’
moments in life that are not often shown in films, such as a the fact that Vincent
likes to sneak up on his wife and their son just to give them a good scare, or
how Vincent and Gabrielle’s questioning of one another leads them into a
spectacular food- and pillow-fight (note the poster) as a way out of answers
that they are not willing to either give or hear. It is too bad that these situations
remaining fleeting -almost furtive- glances into the lives of the characters, and
are not part of a coherent and properly focused story.
