Poison Friends (2006)

ts like the junior cast from Ma Vie Sexuelle wandered in to this film.They're pretending to be a small clique of literature grad students cum wannabe writers. But one bright spark amongst them – Andre Mornay – keeps putting them off. Mornay loathes writers. Probably cus he can't be one himself. But he's clever, even a bit erudite. A clever big head. He wants to be telling all his submissive acolytes what to do, i.e not to write, or be writers. He keeps quoting Karl Kraus ("Why do some write? Because they're too weak not to") as a way of arrogantly subjugating their creative aspirations to his controlling will.If you're wearing the wrong kind of shoes he'll call them vile. Serving him coffee without sugar is pants. If you're scribbling away don't let him see or read it cus he'll dismiss it as "narcissistic cr-p" – and throw it in the bin (or delete it from your laptop, the sneaky git) Yes, he's a condescending tw-t all right. I could see that all the way along. I wonder why his friends didn't twig earlier. Too busy scribbling their narcissistic cr-p. And getting it published. Or too weakly characterised to stand up to him.So when he gets his final comeuppance you can't – well, i couldn't – feel an iota of sympathy for him.For such an apparently clever lad his lies and deceptions seem, at best farcically clumsy, at worst blatantly idiotic. A big flaw in the direction going on here. In need of a better screenplay. Lets ask one of his writer mates. They could make his phoniness more plausible. Or maybe they could just get rid of him completely. Simply write him out of the script.

Professor's pet André Morney (Thibault Vinçon), an apparent apostle of Bohemian satirist Karl Kraus, kicks off this film by professing his contempt for writers and writing. This idea may hold interest for students and for adults who never left academia, but for many of us who left such questioning behind after graduation, in favor of more practical and relational pursuits, it merely bores. But hold on, it gets more interesting as the relationships between Morney and his disciples emerge.Morney continues his pose throughout the film. Yet, as we learn later, when it comes to his own thesis, he can manage barely more than a first draft. Indeed, when his faculty adviser (Jacques Bonnaffé) threatens to drop him as an advisee, Morney resorts to mild violence to secure his diploma.Meanwhile, Morney's diatribes against writing are so convincing that they prompt his friends and fellow students, Eloi (Malik Zidi) to toss away his manuscript for a novel, and Alexandre (Alexandre Steiger) to abandon writing altogether in favor of acting.This all comes to a head after Eloi's mother, Florence Duhaut (Dominique Blanc), a successful writer herself, rescues Eloi's novel from the trash and submits it for publication without his knowledge. Upon discovering this, Eloi is ready to sue his mother, but eventually all is forgiven, and upon publication, Alexandre is the reader at Eloi's book signing.But where is Morney? Off for a year at U. C. Berkeley, as supposed? Or not? And will he show up for the reading? As in a good college text book, one leaves the answers to these and other questions to the viewer.All actors are good looking and perform well, but Natacha Régnier, in particular, spikes male interest as the beautiful librarian, Marguerite.

Delicate film about illusions and truth. About trust and self-introspection, about fiction, desires and social masks. About literature as spider web and structure of an age.Nostalgic pledge for discover of reality's nuances, search of intellectual traps, definition of master and errors, appearances and compassion. The other like perfect prey of our mediocrity. Questions without answers and forms of refuge.It is not a spectacular movie and the ethic circle is one of signs for French vision about social realities but the message, the acting, the lights and the shadows, atmosphere and the subtle end, ambiguous beginning and images of idol-victim, measure of gestures and skin of dialogs, tension and waiting, the carpet of lies and the fight between ambition and its instruments, obsessions and some words of books, self-legitimation and split dreams, taste of Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" makes a special occasion to look an ordinary world in a new light:small sins and vanities ashes.

Fascinating French film on a group of university students and their self-appointed leader, Mourney, who is a big fish in a small intellectual pond. He considers himself a supreme authority on writing - people only write, he says, because they are too weak not to. What begins as a strong, amiable friendship is rooted in Mourney's pompousness, jealousy, and competitive edge, which makes him lie and manipulate his friends to seemingly greater success than theirs. His lies, temper, and falseness leads to his demise, as each of his friends realizes his true nature, and escapes to independence and personal success. Very dark, shadowy, and cold feel to this movie. This was a great film, taking a close look at a character many people have known who is truly poisonous.