This starts brightly and, for a while, it all plays along as light comedy. Then the tone changes. It becomes rather unpleasant and somewhat amoral as our male lead gets caught up in a rather unusual triangle. I was very disappointed.
http://opionator.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/beautiful-lies-or-de-vrais-m ensonges/
It isn't a traditional romantic comedy, so if that's what you were hoping for, I can understand why you were disappointed. But I hope that the following explanation helps others who might be considering seeing it.
***SPOILERS***
The movie is about feelings or the lack thereof on the part of Emilie (the daughter). This is a woman who doesn't really like anyone or consider anyone's feelings, and who is proud of being uninterested in anything that might require her to read a book. If it weren't for Audrey Tautou's inherent cuteness, Emilie would have been the clearcut villain of the piece. She insults her patrons, she insults Jean, played by the adorable Sami, and she humiliates her mother, played by the sensational Nathalie Baye.
I saw this film at a festival in April. Among the attendees were Nathalie Baye and the director of the film, Pierre Salvadori. Nathalie said that her character did what she did for two reasons: Revenge for the humiliation her daughter's actions caused her when she was obviously already feeling unloved; and, as a mother, to teach her daughter a lesson for treating the feelings of others in so cavalier a manner. She mentioned also that Maddy may have done what she did because she had a fear of being alone for the rest of her life and that this opportunity to have a romance with a young, attractive guy was too difficult to resist.
The only thing that disappointed me about this movie was that the filmmakers weren't brave enough to have Jean end up with Maddy, with whom he had a lot more in common, both intellectually and physically (despite her being a lot older).
I'm sorry but, when I said no-one comes out of the film with any credit, I meant it.
***SPOILERS***
Sadly, I don't agree with your analysis at all. Although Maddy may start off with a lot more intuitive insight into the emotions of others, she's full of self-pity and desperation. The idea she buys sex with Jean out of revenge is a complete non-starter. She's just desperate to have some sex again. It only becomes revenge if she thinks her daughter actually cares about Jean and will come to know about the sex. It would have had a certain style if she had engineered the voyeurism by her daughter, but that appears to be accidental — one wonders how long she continued watching through the window. And, in the end, Jean is content to be bought? And then having been bought, to have no feelings of guilt sufficient to deter any future contact with either woman? He seems to be making a good psychological recovery away from them. . . Or is the message of the film supposed to be that a woman who gets herself laid then recovers from depression, and the man who sleeps with her is also set on the road to recovery from his mounting breakdown? And what does the daughter think looking through the window? That Jean refused her money and slept with her mother anyway? How could she think that was the basis of future love on either side?
To those who are thinking about seeing the film, the first half is enjoyable but the direction taken by the script then slowly degrades that enjoyment. The better outcome would have been a tragedy. The hairdressing business should have failed. The mother should have disowned her daughter and been further humiliated by being invited to the christening of her ex husband's baby. And Jean should have left without further involvement with either woman, probably to seek sanctuary in a monastery.
Your opinion of what the film is about obviously trumps Nathalie's. NOT.
The message of the movie is that the daughter needed to learn a lesson in how to treat people.
I agree that the ending was wrong. It should have ended with Emilie pining for Jean, who decided that even a mere affair with Maddy was more valuable than spending a lifetime with her ignorant, cold fish of a daughter.
I think you misunderstand the role of opinion. I make no claims that my view is any better than anyone else's. It's not for one opinion to trump another. Published opinions are a contribution to the discourse and those who are interested can view them all as equally valid or devise criteria for ranking them in terms of their pouvoir to influence the general savoir. As a final thought, a dispassionate observer of a work of art can sometimes understand more than the creator. Many artists work at an instinctive level. By their nature, subconscious influences are not a part of the creator's subjective intention. Connotative layers of meaning may only be revealed through the reactions of the audience. Put another way, no matter what message the sender intends to encode, a different meaning may legitimately be decoded by the recipient of the message.
share"a dispassionate observer of a work of art can sometimes understand more than the creator."
I completely agree. During the Q&A following the screening, many in the audience suggested ideas to Salvadori that they felt were implicit in the film, but which he admitted were not intentional. However, it was apparent from his excitement upon hearing these ideas that they only served to bolster what he was trying to say in the film.
I'm not saying that you haven't a right to your opinion. Critics, after all, have only one voice. I'm just adding my opinion and my voice. Because I don't want people who have an opportunity to see this film to dismiss it because it isn't a traditional romantic comedy. In fact, it's a throwback to a period in Hollywood(the 1930s, Ernst Lubitsch/Gregory La Cava/Howard Hawks period) when characters in a movie of this genre weren't necessarily nice, sympathetic people with pure motives, but were, however, played by stars beloved by audiences--for example, Gary Cooper, Jeanette MacDonald, Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck, etc.-- which gave sophisticated filmmakers like Lubitsch a chance to be somewhat edgy in their storylines without losing the audience in the process. This, according to Salvadori, a fan of those directors and that period of Hollywood film, is what he was trying for here, and in my opinion, he succeeded.
Here's an interview with Salvadori in the Sydney Morning Herald. I think both the journalist's and director's explanation of what the film is about is right up there on the screen. Interestingly, I've found that the people who dislike the film are ardent fans of Audrey Tautou, and who don't like the film because they don't like the character she's playing and don't like the fact that Nathalie Baye steals the movie. So I think Salvadori's biggest mistake was in misjudging today's audience.
Rom-com mom's revealing deception
Philippa Hawker
July 23, 2011.
THERE'S a cautionary lesson in Pierre Salvadori's new French romantic comedy - you don't mess with other people's lives without paying a price. And, in a light-hearted film, this is a point he takes seriously.
Beautiful Lies, which Salvadori directed and co-wrote, focuses on a young woman, played by Audrey Tautou, who decides to do something, covertly, to make her mother feel better about herself, then gets caught up in an elaborate charade of deception and misdirection that only seems to make matters worse.
Salvadori says the film asks: ''Can you help someone and betray them at the same time?'' Sometimes, the person who thinks they are performing a good deed for someone else doesn't understand that they could also do with a certain amount of self-examination, he says. ''You don't change people's lives without asking them.'' And that applies to foreign policy as well as rom-coms. ''To life, at any level.''
Beautiful Lies is about a daughter and a mother, Emilie (Tautou) and Maddy (Nathalie Baye) who on the surface have very little in common. Yet when it comes to relationships, they are both adrift. Emilie is a melancholy figure, Salvadori says, afraid of taking risks, and quick to manipulate those around her. Maddy is still pining for the husband who left her for another woman. Then - misled by her daughter's intervention into thinking she has a secret admirer - she is all too ready to throw caution to the winds.
It would have been easy to make Maddy a pathetic character, Salvadori says. But Baye was never going to let that happen. ''She has had a beautiful career, worked with Godard and Truffaut, and she is connected to new directors. She could be, without fear, a woman who can take the chance of looking ridiculous, and she did it with truth and innocence.''
Beautiful Lies is screening now.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/romcom-moms-revealing-deception-20110722-1hsu3.html#ixzz1SqtdZlx3
Well, rather than debate the film in public and potentially spoil it for those who might go to see it, let's leave it here. I think we can both agree on one thing — that those who are interested in cinema should go and see it. It may not be completely successful but, even in its failures, it remains interesting and, from our exchanges, readers may understand it is also thought-provoking.
shareAgreed.
[deleted]
I understand how thankless it must be as a person paid to do marketing on sites like this. You are to be congratulated for your diligence in trying to undo whatever harm I may have done in posting my honest opinion. I also accept that I have no ownership over this or any other thread so you are free to write whatever you want here. But do you not understand that you are just coming over as increasingly desperate? More interestingly, is it not a breach of the Guardian's copyright to cut and paste the entire article here?
shareI'm not paid to publicize or market this film. Nathalie, oui; jltyler, non.
Reviews and interviews posted online by the Guardian can be cut and pasted or sent as a link. Reviews, etc. from the Times (London) online, can't be read (or anything else) without a subscription.
I posted the interview for your interest. Sorry...really thought you'd find it interesting. Will delete it from "your" thread.
I saw the film 2 days ago and have to say i agree with points made by you both! I too think it started to go a little downhill towards the end. I felt it was losing my interest when it just seemed to have a few stop points that it didnt take. It wasnt an overlong runtime by any means but began to feel like it and there were points where i just felt like they should stop it here, or here, or here!
Spoilers
I do also agree that i think the point of the mother doing what she did at the end was a revenge act, to sort of show the daughter that she shouldnt hurt people and that her actions will cause her to be hurt herself. I also however didnt like this part in the film, i felt it sort of took it too far if that makes sense and for me, if some guy sleeps with/snogs my mother, no matter how much i like him, its now a no go area!!!
I also agree that with anyone else in the role i probably would have disliked this film however Audrey Tatou just has that thing where i think its difficult to dislike her and i actually liked the character and her progression through the story. (although priceless is another story!)
Nathalie Baye was just fantastic i felt, what a beautiful woman for her age! Id like to think with the photoshoot at the end the mum would soon be finding her own love!
All in all it was a nice film which i did like but one i prob wouldnt return to again.
*****MAJOR SPOILERS*****
Yeah, the ending bothered me as well, but only because I felt that the filmmakers were trying to have their cake and eat it too. According to the writer-director, they were consciously trying to be a bit "edgy" and unconventional in the manner of sophisticated, provocative directors from 1930s like Ernst Lubitsch and Gregory La Cava. Hence, they wrote the role of the mother specifically for an older actress who is still regarded as sexy and seductive in France, so it wouldn't be yucky or all that surprising to the mature audience they were pitching this movie to when she succeeds in turning the younger guy on. To then manufacture such a traditional romantic comedy ending was just wrong. Clearly it should have been Jean falling for Maddy and Emilie doing the photoshoot at the end, having learned her lesson.
But I guess these particular filmmakers didn't have the courage to see it through. Too bad it wasn't directed by one of the French female directors--Tonie Marshall or Nicole Garcia. Those women would not have hesitated a moment to go all the way and do it right.
No - I wasn't particularly impressed... Watchable, but too long and rather old-fashioned - the old dears in the audience at Leicester's Phoenix this afternoon definitely seemed to enjoy it more than I did... A bit of a waste of the talents of the usually highly charming Mademoiselle Tautou.
shareFor me the movie started going downhill when Jean began to hate Emilie, and it wasn't just things said out of anger. I mean, "loathsome"? He actually called her loathsome?? I don't know what I found less believable - the fact that he felt that way about her in the first place, or the fact that she still kept talking to him after being called that.
But how did he go from that burning, all-consuming love to contempt so quickly? That was some bipolar piece of writing.