FRENCH TWIST Movie Review

Bushwhacked
Gazon Maudit

All praise to Victoria Abril for her stalwart efforts at trying to keep this helpless, sinking ship of a sex comedy afloat; it goes down to the bottom anyway, and it seems to take longer to do it than the entire running time of Titanic. Josiane Balasko (who played the other woman in Bertrand Blier's Too Beautiful for You) was the perp of this high-concept gender-bender about a philandering husband (Alain Chabat) whose lonely wife (Abril) begins an affair with a husky, sensitively masculine woman (Balasko). Hubby isn't happy about this, but reluctantly agrees to an “arrangement,” whereby Abril spends a few nights with her husband followed by a few with her new lover. They'll just all have to get along (but of course that doesn't mean we have to stay).The biggest problem with French Twist isn't necessarily the moronic premise; I've seen great filmmakers do remarkable things with mighty thin material. But Josiane Balasko, who wrote French Twist in addition to directing it, is not even a passable filmmaker. This thing is all situation and no comedy; you want to elbow Balasko in the ribs and tell her “I get the premise. Now do something with it.” Alas, the premise, such as it is, is all. Balasko deserts her cast, and her audience, to do a slow French Twist in the wind.

NEXT STOP … Anything else.

1995 (R) 100m/C FR Victoria Abril, Alain Chabat, Josiane Balasko, Ticky Holgado; D: Josiane Balasko; W: Josiane Balasko, Telsche Boorman; C: Gerard de Battista; M: Manuel Malou. Cesar Awards '96: Best Writing; Nominations: Cesar Awards '96: Best Actor (Chabat), Best Director (Balasko), Best Film, Best Supporting Actor (Holgado); Golden Globe Awards '96: Best Foreign Film. VHS,LV, Closed Caption TOU