CAFÉ AU LAIT Movie Review

Metisse

Lola (Julie Mauduech) is an 18-year-old West Indian woman living in Paris, who happily discovers that she's pregnant. Not quite as happy, however, are Julie's two boyfriends, Jamal (Hubert Kounde) and Felix (Mathieu Kassovitz, the versatile star of A Self-Made Hero), who are as miserable in each other's company as they are wondering which of them is the father. In the interest of fairness, the two men—one black and the son of diplomats, one Jewish and without a cent—finally decide to put their petty squabbles aside and move in with Lola, to help share in their parental responsibilities. Café au Lait was written and directed by Kassovitz (his directorial debut) in a breezy, colorful, romantic fashion that feels like a calculated nose-thumbing at societal conventions. Such formulas can sometimes be miscalculated, however, and while the relatively harmless Café au Lait's heart is most assuredly in the right place, the picture pulls off the unusual feat of being both preachy and uncomfortably stereotypical in its characterizations and conclusions. A new wave Brigitte Loves Bernie/Abie's Irish Rose with a healthy dose of Jules and Jim tossed in, Café au Lait is intended to be both liberated and liberating, but it feels mighty familiar. (Kassovitz seems to have anticipated She's Gotta Have It popping into the viewer's mind by having Lola accuse Felix of thinking he's in a Spike Lee picture.)

NEXT STOP … Jules and Jim, She's Gotta Have It, La Halne (Hate)

1994 94m/C FR Mathieu Kassovitz, Julie Mauduech, Hubert Kounde, Vincent Cassel, Tadek Lokcinski, Jany Holt; D: Mathieu Kassovitz; W: Mathieu Kassovitz; C: Pierre Aim; M: Marie Daulne, Jean-Louis Daulne. VHS NYF