A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was Damien Chazelle’s directorial debut and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, with his first movie, Chazelle went for some massive vintage John Cassavetes vintage vibe but it wasn’t a bad choice. Seriously, if they would have removed the modern cars and the smartphones, it would have felt as if the movie had been shot 20 years before. Eventually, it is an acquired taste but I thought that the black-and-white cinematography was quite beautiful and there was a nice jazzy mood (the music was really cool as well). I also liked the fact that Elena and Madeline both had such a different vibe. Indeed, Elena had a strong sexual aura (this meet-cute in the metro was so intense) so it’s not surprising that Guy would fall for her but there was also something soft and gentle about Madeline and I get that Guy would be attracted to both of them. It’s too bad that, even though all 3 of them were quite charismatic, Chazelle never really managed to make them really interesting though. I guess it’s the drawback coming from such an artistic approach, sure, it’s beautiful to look at but it tends to deprive the characters of a good chunk of their personality. It didn’t also help that they were all involved sometimes in some random scenes which had very little added value. For example, why did we follow Elena going to the house of some random creepy old guy? On top of that, according to the title, we already had to focus on Guy’s and Madeline’s journeys, not hers. Still, you have to keep in mind that Chazelle was not even 25 years old when he made the damned thing which is quite impressive. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was a decent directorial debut and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Damien Chazelle’s work.  

7/10