Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni play a mother and daughter with curiously skewed love lives in “Beloved” (Les bien-aimés), written and directed by Christophe Honoré (“Dans Paris”). Sappy numbers by Alex Beaupain make for a smug musical lacking either retro panache or genre-savoir. Set in Paris, Prague, Reims, London and Montreal, “Beloved” makes a thoughtless parallel between Soviets rolling into Prague and Saudis flying into the Twin Towers. Titles for 1964, 1978, 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2007 mark the time for young clerk Madeleine (Ludivine Sagnier) to steal Roger Vivier heels from her workplace, turn tricks, hook up with a Czech endocrinologist and raise her daughter Vera (Mastroianni, at about age forty) who falls for a gay drummer in London who says his day job is a vet. A plot of impulsive affairs and decades-long infidelity yields a slight, saucy comedy of bourgeois libidos. More interesting is what Honore laments in his press notes: “For a long time I believed that only my parents had known true love, while I could only love halfway, crippled by mistrust and terror. But in the end, I decided my love stories were surely as valid as theirs. The impossibility of loving carelessly in no way diminished our attachment or passion.” That rather strange reasoning, to acknowledge a generation living and loving with AIDS, sheds a light that never finds its way to the emulsion of “Beloved.” With Milos Forman, Rasha Bukvic, Paul Schneider, Louis Garrel, Ben Sellem. 139m. (Bill Stamets)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Spawn Sacrifice: A Review Of The Creator "The Creator" is richly detailed, punchy, pulpy, punkish entertainment that still has highly serious subjects in mind, without growing didactic and with substantial heart.
A Drag Getting Old: A Review Of Indiana Jones 5 In the protracted opening couple of reels, a very young, computer-crafted Harrison Ford plays a younger cultural marauder who first encounters the dull MacGuffin of the title.
Uncanny Ally: A Review Of M3GAN "M3GAN" sells itself in its first handful of seconds in how it introduces the handiwork of roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams, "Get Out") and her present product, PurrPetual Petz from Funki.
Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni play a mother and daughter with curiously skewed love lives in “Beloved” (Les bien-aimés), written and directed by Christophe Honoré (“Dans Paris”). Sappy numbers by Alex Beaupain make for a smug musical lacking either retro panache or genre-savoir. Set in Paris, Prague, Reims, London and Montreal, “Beloved” makes a thoughtless parallel between Soviets rolling into Prague and Saudis flying into the Twin Towers. Titles for 1964, 1978, 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2007 mark the time for young clerk Madeleine (Ludivine Sagnier) to steal Roger Vivier heels from her workplace, turn tricks, hook up with a Czech endocrinologist and raise her daughter Vera (Mastroianni, at about age forty) who falls for a gay drummer in London who says his day job is a vet. A plot of impulsive affairs and decades-long infidelity yields a slight, saucy comedy of bourgeois libidos. More interesting is what Honore laments in his press notes: “For a long time I believed that only my parents had known true love, while I could only love halfway, crippled by mistrust and terror. But in the end, I decided my love stories were surely as valid as theirs. The impossibility of loving carelessly in no way diminished our attachment or passion.” That rather strange reasoning, to acknowledge a generation living and loving with AIDS, sheds a light that never finds its way to the emulsion of “Beloved.” With Milos Forman, Rasha Bukvic, Paul Schneider, Louis Garrel, Ben Sellem. 139m. (Bill Stamets)
