An intense romance: Niels Schneider and Lou de Laâge in 'Coup de Chance'. Photo / Supplied
An intense romance: Niels Schneider and Lou de Laâge in 'Coup de Chance'. Photo / Supplied
Film review: Woody Allen’s latest film, a contemporary romantic drama that is the Francophile director’s first French language feature, is an inconsequential if mildly entertaining work. As with so much of his six-decade oeuvre, this story is preoccupied with infidelity and deceit, and revolves around characters whose privileged situation anddubious life choices make them hard to root for but schadenfreudian to watch.
Lou de Laâge (The Mad Women’s Ball) plays the gorgeously doe-eyed and ostensibly happily married 30-something Fanny Fournier, who bumps into an old school friend Alain (Niels Schneider) on the streets of Paris. He has been besotted with her since they were young, and tells her at every opportunity. The pretty pair embark on an increasingly intense relationship. But when Fanny’s possessive husband starts wondering why his trophy wife seems distracted, he engages nefarious business contacts to solve his wife’s attention problem.
Allen’s script translates well to the lives of well-heeled Parisians, and his three main characters in the inevitable ménage à trois deliver solid performances, particularly ghastly husband Jean (Melvil Poupaud, Laurence Anyways). A materialistic Peter Pan, he still plays with a train set and forces his pretty bride to attend boring hunting weekends in the countryside.
But the supporting cast are bland plot-carriers devoid of personality or interest. After the fallout from 2019′s Rainy Day in New York, when stars Timothée Chalamet and Selina Gomez donated their salaries to charity in the wake of the #MeToo wave that swept over Allen, a phone call from the director may no longer be so desirable.
Of course, Allen has been making films in European cities – and with European money – for decades. But here, whatever the reason for his production choices, without the wattage of so much as one alumnus from Call My Agent, Allen’s perfunctory domestic drama feels lightweight and irrelevant to both his canon and his loyal audience.
