Directed by François Ozon, who adapted Albert Camus's absurdist novel with some help with the writing from Philippe Piazzo. In lush black-and-white with many an overstuffed frame.
Colonial Algiers, 1940s. A dissolute young Pied-noir moves through his days with vast ennui. Somehow he's still buff despite that and having a desk job that he appears to execute with efficiency. His mother passes without a flicker of emotion. A former work colleague decides he is irresistible after all even as he weirdly insists on clinging to and expressing only his personal truth. Perhaps she mistook his ennui for aloof cool. There is swimming, cinema, shagging and coming to the aid of neighbours before the pivotal capricious event that cleaves the movie in two. The ensuing court scenes got tedious and the climactic monologue with a priest overdid it.
Lead Benjamin Voisin is mostly as facially inert as Alan Delon was in Le Samouraï (1967) but lacked Delon's physical grace and hat. That he might be neurodivergent was not considered; the religious and psychological stuff seems dated now, or at least takes aim at a more rigid society than presently exists. I met his ennui mostly with disinterest.
It reminded me most of Roma (2018) both in style and staleness.
Glenn Kenny: four stars at Roger Ebert's venue. A horror movie. Peter Bradshaw: five stars. Many divergences from the source material. "Ozon shows that it is [the lead character's] martyrdom which is absurd." Jeannette Catsoulis was less impressed than the boys. "Existential ennui is not exactly fun to watch (or, one assumes, easy to perform), yet a meaningless life has rarely looked this beautiful."
