MovieChat Forums > All or Nothing (2002) Discussion > French woman + repetitiveness

French woman + repetitiveness

posted 11 years ago by drnutkin
7 replies | jump to latest

Putting aside whether or not you liked the movie, was anyone else a little weirded out by the French woman who got in the taxi with the vase? She seemed like she had been transported from another (bad) movie, complete with the painful Fronsh accent/odd peppering of French 101 vocabulary. It really took me out of things since she was in such contrast, which I assume was the point, but it just didn't work for me. Plus there was what looked like a man's hand on the vase in a number of shots, unless I was just missing something...

(For people who have seen other Mike Leigh movies:) As others have said, I was also kind of surprised at the - I assume unintentional - throwbacks to others of his movies: the council estate mouth-breather (similar to Tim Roth's character in Meantime), the bratty daughter making awful over-the-top scowling faces (the street-sweeper daughter in Secrets & Lies, Jane Horrocks' character in Life Is Sweet), Timothy Spall worried about his wife not loving him (Secrets & Lies). It's fair for others to say that you can accuse lots of directors of repeating themselves, but even though Mike Leigh focuses on the same broad topics in many of his movies, he doesn't really do this kind of obvious recycling in anything else I've seen. In my opinion this didn't add anything new to what he does well (for the record, I love Naked, really like Secrets & Lies, like Life Is Sweet, am okay with Meantime, didn't really like Vera Drake, and kind of hated Happy-Go-Lucky). Although I did like seeing Sally Hawkins in a totally different part and thought her character deserved more screen time (and I'm not usually bothered by open-endedness).

[–] smoko 10 years ago

@drnutkin The French woman didn't work for me either, but not because of the accent. She complains about going through the tunnel and how the conversation is boring, and suddenly she's asking whether he's married with kids. She went from bitch to friendly in less than 10 seconds, and that didn't seem realistic at all.

[–] Redart27 10 years ago

Yes, the French woman was too cliche and fake for this gritty film. Iz zees ow ze eenglish regarde ze franche? She looked like she walked out of an SNL sketch, or a scene from Ratatouille.

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[–] garp-26 9 years ago

I was intrigued by the effect she had on Phil. After he drops her off he looks more depressed than ever, turns off all his communication devices, takes a long solitary drive to the coast and gazes out at the sea - la mer. I wondered if we were seeing her through his tired eyes, exotic and unattainable. Phil would be looking at her mostly through his rear view mirror and the image he chose to see was something of a caricature.
Also for all of her apparent flamboyance and sophistication she didn't appear to be any happier than Phil.

[–] blakkdog 8 years ago

The french woman was played by Katheryn Hunter who is a well known English actress (was in Harry Potter). I found it interesting that they chose to cast an english actress rather than just get a french actress for what first appears to be a bit of a throw away part. The over the top accent cant have been accidental, Hunter is a better actress than that.

From what I understand, that whole scene was improvised actually and all Katheryn Hunter knew was "you call for a taxi and somebody will turn up". Such interesting direction.

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[–] Jes' Sayin' (5947) 7 years ago

Thought it brilliant the way cabbie calmed her down after she started freaking out about the tunnel...

[–] Who (5146) 4 years ago

She was awful. Did she just show up on set thinking she was making a comedy? She kept peppering her conversation with cliche french phrases, yet she was fluent enoughin english to ask all her nosy questions. Bilingual people don’t mix up languages like that.

[–] TheMan18 (12480) a year ago

Are we really that well experienced in life that we can tell?