Bon Voyage

Directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau

Sony Pictures Classics

Bon Voyage is not all bad—it’s just silly, unoriginal and pointless.

Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s latest film mixes the chaos in Paris just before the Nazi occupation with a hearty dash of scandal, intrigue and romance. Sounds like a recipe for potential disaster, and it too often is. Although Rappeneau’s recreation of this war-torn era is undeniably excellent, his grasp of plot and characters is tenuous at best and not enough to redeem the film’s many faults.

Newcomer Gregori Derangere is the perpetually bemused Frederic, an impoverished writer still in love with his childhood crush. She’s now the popular actress Viviane Denvers (Isabelle Adjani, who looks like she’s been given a severe dose of Botox). So intoxicating is Viviane’s hold on Frederic that he doesn’t mind being imprisoned for a crime she committed, later following her across France to Bordeaux’s Hotel Splendide. A crop of rabid aristocrats have also gathered at the Splendide to escape the madhouse of Paris and badger the wait-staff nonstop for rooms—God forbid they sleep in their cars, with their suitcases and hatboxes!

On the way to Bordeaux Frederic comes across his old jailhouse buddy, Raoul (Yvan Attal), the movie’s most likable character. Raoul agrees to accompany Frederic on his oblivious quest for Viviane, an adventure that introduces some new players to the exploding drama, like the pert schoolgirl Camille (Virginie Leodyen, who’s getting a little old to play these parts). Camille and Professor Kopolski (Jean-Marc Stehle), a brilliant physicist who happens to be Jewish and the object of her undying devotion, are trying to get to England with several jugs of heavy water that could wreak havoc on the world if they fell into the wrong hands.

It only follows that Frederic and Raoul, who has taken an immediate fancy to the girl, need to embroil themselves in the political and romantic mess with Raoul’s hopelessly star-struck friends (Viviane’s an actress, remember?), strategically introduced for more comic relief. Call it a veritable love hexagon, in which people are always in love with people in love with other people.

Viviane’s despicability in these matters is somewhat forgivable; Frederic’s stupidity less so. At least the former is just exercising her incredible capacity for self-preservation—one that allows her to latch on to the closest plank on the country’s sinking ship, which just happens to be the over-greased, high-ranking Beaufort (Gerard Depardieu). He and Frederic are but two of the many people who have their eyes on the irresistible and infinitely manipulative actress.

Serendipity and coincidences abound in Bon Voyage—but then everyone’s running around so frantically that it would be impossible for them not to bump into each other at the most opportune, or most inopportune, moments. So do subplots, many of which are left maddeningly unresolved. At times the film verges on self-parody—Viviane’s hammy, melodramatic antics, for example: the way she throws herself on her bed, her eyes oozing crocodile tears. These keep the tone light for the most part—thank God for small mercies. But it is a testament to the egregious Eurocentrism of American film distribution that mediocre movies like Bon Voyage receive U.S. distribution with remarkable ease, while far superior international films often lack an American audience.

—Tiffany I. Hsieh

The Alamo

Directed by John Lee Hancock

Touchstone Pictures

History, legend and myth all coincide in The Alamo. Heart-wrenching, dramatic, yet with a hint of humor, the film depicts two of the most famous battles of the Mexican-American war: the Siege of the Alamo in 1836 and the succeeding Battle of San Jacinto.