The Big Picture
We’ve had a string of pretty
decent, slick French thrillers over the last couple of years (Anything For
Her, Tell No One, etc.) so it was almost inevitable that sooner or
later we’d get a duff one. While
it’s far from an unmitigated disaster, The Big Picture is that duffer.
Paul (Romain Duris) has it
all. Smooth and handsome, he’s a
successful Parisian lawyer with a beautiful wife, Sarah (Marina Fois), a couple
of gorgeous kids, a big house and a nice middle class circle of friends. He’s even in line to take over the law
firm when terminally ill senior partner and GILF Anne (Catherine Deneuve) pops
her Louis Vuitton’s.
But, being French, Paul is
dissatisfied with his life. A
talented amateur photographer who gave up on his dreams, Paul is adrift, too
filled with ennui to even be bothered being consumed by self-loathing. Sarah, being French, is also
dissatisfied with her nice, pampered middle class life so she’s started
joyously boffing the next-door neighbour, an arrogant photo-journalist. Can you see where this is going
yet?
When Sarah leaves him, Paul
picks a fight with the photographer, accidentally killing him. Faced with the shame of being exposed
as a murderer and a life in prison, Paul covers up the crime, fakes his own death
and assumes the victim’s identity, legging it to Montenegro. Suddenly freed from the shackles of
wife, kids and responsibility, Paul blossoms into the photographer and artist
he always should have been, finding work on a Belgrade newspaper and rapidly
scoring himself an exhibition at a trendy art gallery. However his newfound fame may prove to
be his undoing…
And that’s about it. French guy commits murder, French guy
gets away with murder. Sure, he
finds a measure of redemption in the closing scenes of the film but this feels
artificial, more as if the filmmakers didn’t know how to finish the film and so
tacked on a last-minute good deed.
A lot like its lead, the film is stylish and good-looking but loses its
way in the last third. Duris is as
handsome and moody here as he was in The Beat That My Heart Skipped and, despite his Paul lacking the passion to commit a
crime passionnel, he’s a
sympathetic, attractive protagonist.
The problem with The Big Picture is that other than the central murder nothing much happens and it
happens very slowly. It feels too
much like a reheat of other, better films, most notably Michelangelo
Antonioni’s The Passenger or
Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley. Unfortunately, it lacks
the freewheeling existentialism of Antonioni’s film or the precision and
incidence of Minghella’s. The film
lacks tension; you never quite care enough to wonder if Paul will get away with
his crime and for a supposedly loving family man who lives for his kids he
seems to find it all too easy to turn his back on them. Ultimately, you just don’t really care.
More a Gallic Reggie
Perrin than The Talented Mr
Ripley, The Big Picture may just be the least thrilling thriller you’ll see
all year.
David Watson
Director
Eric Lartigau
Cast
Romain Duris, Marina Fois, Catherine Deneuve,
Branka Katic, Niels Arestrup, Eric Ruf
Country
France
Screenplay
Eric Lartigau, Laurent de Bartillat & Stephane
Cabal, based on the novel by Douglas Kennedy
Running time
114min
Year
2010
Certificate
15
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