Summer Things (2002)

This is a pretty typical French farce. As is in seemingly all French movies, most of the characters are on vacation at a beach resort (although one actually stays back at home working!). There are three middle age couples and their assorted children/step-children. Two of the women (Charlotte Rampling and Karen Viard) are long-time friends and they meet a third woman (carole Bouquet) with a VERY jealous husband at the resort. Viard and her husband have a new baby and financial troubles. There's a young woman (Clotilde Coreau) and a teenage boy, who are somebody's children (this movie has no English subs and my French leaves a lot to be desired). Another daughter (Lou Doillon) has gone on a separate vacation to Chicago with her father's hapless employee and she proves to be WAY more than he can handle. One of the married couples each have casual, breezy affairs. There's also the usual French May-December sexual encounter, but with gender roles reversed (older woman-younger man) and a transsexual.I didn't really recognize most of the male cast, but the female cast here is quite impressive. Charlotte Rampling is a Brit actress, but since collaborating with Francois Ozon on a couple films, she has worked mostly in France the past decade or so. Carole Bouquet is a former Bond girl ("For Your Eyes Only") and ex-wife of Gerard Depardieu. She's had a long career in French film going all the way back to Luis Bunuel's last film, "That Obscure Object of Desire". Lou Doillon is the French daughter of another transplanted Brit actress, minor 60's sex symbol Jane Birkin, which would also make her the half-sister of Charlotte Gainsbourg. She is not as talented as her sibling, but she might be even more sexy, and she has pretty much all the erotic scenes here (of which there are surprisingly few for a French movie). Clotilde Coreau, on the other hand, might be most famous (well, with me anyway)for her hot and gratuitous lesbian scene in the bizarre French slasher film "Deep in the Woods", but most of her other French roles have been much more sedate and mainstream like the one here.Of course, I would need to see this with English subs to fully appreciate it, but even in French it is pretty energetic and fun. If you generally like these French/continental bedroom farces, I'm sure you'll enjoy this one.

"Embrassez" has traces of Woody Allen and some others from the old same soft comedy, it will sure satisfy those who are looking for a movie that make them smile. That's the purpose of Michael Blanc and I think he achieved his objective.Rich and mature people that do not know what to do with their lives, sick of everything and of everyone. Jelaousy, infidelity, intrigue and a thousand misunderstandings. If you got all those ingredients, then nothing can possibly go wrong. If also you got actors such as Dutronc, Rampling or Bouquet... well, mission accomplished!! *My rate: 7/10

A gaggle of unpleasant city dwellers descend on Le Touquet for a week's holiday. Stories intertwine, characters fight, make friends, deceive each other, have sex...Blanc has gathered together a stellar cast for his adaptation of Connolly's book, but to little avail. What should be hilarious is instead at turns tedious and irritating. All the characters are either pathetic or unpleasant or both, and in the end, despite the farcical nature of things, this viewer was left caring little about what happens to any of them.Credit to the always wonderful Rampling, plus Bouquet and Viard but that's it. And Dutronc looks like he's rather overdone the nips and tucks, if you ask me...

As with "Grosse Fatigue" the pair Michel Blanc / Carole Bouquet is at the center of the film. Lots of laughs. Subtle. Interesting characters even if sometimes it could be more subtle (eg : Michel Blanc's character is really extreme).Pour passer une bonne soiree.