Juliette Binoche

  • Trois couleurs: Bleu [Three Colours: Blue] (1993)

    Trois couleurs: Bleu [Three Colours: Blue] (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2019) I’ve been fascinated by the Trois couleurs trilogy (on titling alone) for a quarter of a decade, so now was the time to see what the fuss was about. The trilogy apparently sends familiar premises spinning in new directions and I can certainly see it at play in Trois couleurs: Bleu, a film in which a familiar dramatic situation—a woman devastated by grief after having her husband and son die in a car crash that she survived—is given an unusual turn. Here our grieving protagonist decides to retreat from the world, leaving no address even to friends and family. Juliette Binoche anchors the film in a complex performance, portraying a character freed by her grief, yet not entirely able to give in to self-destruction. Trois couleurs: Bleu may be heavy at times, but there’s an off-beat quality to its story that makes it compelling. It’s not the kind of film that I’d readily re-watch again, but there’s a careful balance of cinematography (focusing on, yes, the colour blue) and music that adds a lot to the purely narrative drive of the film. This is, clearly, a film with clear artistic intentions and writer-director Krzysztof Kieślowski has the skills to execute the result to his satisfaction.

  • Dan in Real Life (2007)

    Dan in Real Life (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, January 2016) There’s something almost unapologetically sweet in Dan in Real Life’s blend of large-family dynamics, romantic entanglements, good-natured characters and picturesque setting. (That house!) That doesn’t mean that the film lacks conflicts, just that they’re held at a controlled boil and are all happily resolved by the end no matter how unlikely they may seem. Steve Carell is a solid anchor for the movie as the titular Dan, a widower trying to keep three daughters under some semblance of control while finding himself attracted beyond reason to a lovely stranger who is eventually revealed as his brother’s latest girlfriend. Don’t worry: it work out. Much of the time in-between is spent witnessing a very large family gathering, with all of the associated quirks that suggests. It’s charming and undemanding, which should hit the spot for audiences. Juliette Binoche is fine as the object of Dan’s attraction, with a number of good actors in smaller roles. Dan in Real Life unspools without too much trouble, the virtues of its lead characters easily winning over viewers and justifying even the happiest of endings. There’s a bit of sentimental sap, as you’d expect, but it’s not unwelcome in its own way.