Sunday, January 15, 2006

"Kings And Queen" -- The Review

Voted the third best film of the year in the annual Village Voice poll, this is a French (make that extremely French) drama about a woman about to get married to a quietly supportive and wealthy man after her first lover committed suicide and the second one went a tad bonkers. Her father gets ill, her son doesn't like his new potential father, the second husband (who plays the viola in a quartet) is rather charmingly unhinged and gets committed and on it goes rather randomly. Terrible score, with intrusive pop songs alternating with awkward underscore. I found certain scenes compelling but it's a mess. Directorboy hated it and said if I weren't there he would have turned it off after 40 minutes, something he rarely does. I've just mocked the NYTimes for saying movies are generally too long and here's a good example of my argument. This movie is 2.5 hours long, but believe me, it certainly wouldn't have been better at 90 minutes. ** (2/4)

1 comment:

Michael in New York said...

Having just seen the delightful 67 minute bauble "Bed of Roses" from 1933, I agree. But the NYT argument that we don't need set-up or character development because people already know the plot so why waste our time is just goofy. Can't wait to post about the book -- glad to see there was nothing too off target in my ref to her in the Winters obit.