Adapted from a novel of same name by Olivier Adam, this is a film with a poor execution of a great concept. A young woman (Elise) returns home in Paris from a long trip to Spain to find that her brother - to whom she is extremely close; they're twins, you see - has had a violent argument with her father, and left home. The problem is, no one in her family knows where he is. Seeing as he is a talented musician, everyone pretends to assume that the young man is travelling all around the country, visiting cities and playing the guitar. No one seems to care much. Elise becomes obsessed with finding her brother, suffers from serious health problems resulting from her denial to eat anything. Ultimately, she finds out her brother has been dead all along, and that her parents have been covering up the story with his made up trips to exotic cities in France. Strong acting, good writing, gorgeous mise-en-scene elements.
The big issue here is the predictability of the film. From the very moment when the father sits in his armchair to watch the telly and bears a rather melancholic look on his eyes: we know what's happened. And that's about 10 min into the plot. That's a problem, Mr. Director. A big problem. Such a strong outcome of events shouldn't be so
out there, and so early
, for the narrative's sake. Halfway through the film he tries to turn the story around with the fake letters from Loïc to Elise, but by then the viewer has probably found cunning clues against the authenticity of such letters.
And don't you worry about spoilers, the film
really establishes a sort of plotline forecast right at the beginning. A disappointment.
Director: Philippe Lioret.
Score
Cinematography: 8.0
Acting: 9.0
Editing: 5.5
Sound: 7.0
Text: 7.0
Average Score: 7.3
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