And Now Ladies & Gentlemen
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Movie Reviews of And Now Ladies & Gentlemen
Movie Review: Romance with a twist
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie would be worth it, if just for the singer/actress Patricia Kaas performance alone (she sings all of her own songs no dubbing)add Jeremy Irons who plays a con with a heart, sit back enjoy.Movie Review: Intensely quiet
Summary: 5 Stars
A beautifully shot piece of cinematrical poetry. An authentic fairy tale. Haven't seen something like that in quite a while. No Hollywood romance could ever come close. Sail away...Movie Review: mind trips
Summary: 5 Stars
An iternational heart warming twister where evryone gets what they deserve. The ultimate mind fornicationMovie Review: An international jewel thief and a chanteuse have blackouts in common
Summary: 4 Stars
Pay no attention to the title of this film because the more I think about it the only purpose it has is to put this at or towards the top of any alphabetical listing of the films of director Claude Lelouch ("A Man and a Woman") or star Jeremy Irons. So without regard for the film's title we are introduced to Valentin Valentin (Irons), a jewel thief who comes up with creative but simple ways of robbing jewelry stores. But then Valentin's life starts to come apart. His relationship with his lover, Françoise (Alessandra Martines), has gone sour, he is suddenly feeling guilty about every crime he has ever committed, and to top things off he is suddenly experiencing blackouts. Meanwhile, in another part of Europe a French chanteuse, Jane Lester (Patricia Kaas, a real-life French chanteuse whose songs provide a counterpoint to the story so pay attention to the lyrics each and every time she sings), also has just ended her romantic relationship and is also suffering from unexplained blackouts, usually while singing.
Jane travels to Morocco because assuming the worse from the blackouts she decides to seek healing instead of going to a brain surgeon. Valentin also ends up in Morocco, literally by accident, but their common ailment has cause to bring them together under the misery loves company rubric. He is staying at the same hotel where she is singing, and when Madame Falconetti (Claudia Cardiale) reports the theft of her jewelry, Valentin becomes the obvious suspect. To make things interesting, when he says he had a blackout and does not know if he did the robbery or not, he could be telling the truth. Then again...
This is a story for grown ups, mainly because Irons bring a certain gravity to the proceedings because of his age. The fact that his criminal career rests on his brain and that is what is betraying him lends a irony to the tale as well. Then there is a question of whether or not anything we are seeing represents the blackout themselves. The two best parts of this 2002 film are the bank robberies and the songs, even if the former involve people not recognizing Irons in disguise and the later are sung in French (with substitles), and they tend to make the rest of this slowly developing film seem even slower in comparison.
Be forewarned that "And Now...Ladies & Gentlemen" is one of those films that you are probably going to need to watch twice to make sense of it all. That is not because it is confusing per se, but rather that the ending is open to interpretation depending on how you read the various layers that Lelouch reveals during the final real. For me the journey was more interesting than the destination since I am not sure how much projecting I was doing on what was happening at the end. Still, this is a change of pace film and if you are looking for something different you could do a lot worse. Also, there is ample evidence that this film really resonates with some viewers, which would be great if you are one of those people.
Movie Review: Unambitious but entertaining fluff
Summary: 4 Stars
Sometimes it's a director's least ambitious films that are their most satisfying. And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen... may just be a piece of romantic fluff from Claude Lelouch, but it's entertaining romantic fluff that doesn't outstay its welcome even at the 128-minute mark. Lelouch is a talented director whose ambition is only rarely matched by his material, usually overcompensating with impressive technique that fails to hide the thinness of the story and characters. While no-one could ever mistake And Now... for having any depth, it's a pure audience pleaser (albeit possibly for a middle-aged cinema audience that no longer exists) that genuinely pleases. It's rarely laugh out loud funny and it's not one of the great screen romances, but it is a charming and engaging number skilfully crafted.
It's styled after those glossy widescreen 60s romantic comedies about glamorous people in faraway places, usually involving light comic banter and (possibly) wrongly accused gentlemen jewel thieves. Jeremy Irons, so often a hard actor to warm to, is surprisingly likeable here and shows a real gift for comedy in the jewel robbery scenes (the first of which nods amiably to Lelouch's earlier La Bonne Annee). As is his wont, Lelouch casts yet another popular French singer in the other lead, this time Patricia Kass, who turns out better than initially expected. The two are eventually drawn together by the same neurological symptoms, which cause him to dream of returning his ill-gotten gains and her to forget her lyrics while coming over all monochrome, finding themselves in Morocco and en route to a healing shrine and possible romance. With the exception of Thierry L'Hermitte, Amidou and Claudia Cardinale, most of the cast of familiar faces from French cinema have little to do but make an appearance, but they never overbalance the film in the way that the top-heavy casting so often does in the director's other films. Extremely likeable.