A good movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by Cédric Klapisch, I thought I might as well check it out. I have to admit that I knew nothing about the damned thing before watching it and, with its poster, I thought it would be a period piece, the first one directed by Klapisch so far. However, it seemed that the French director chickened out somehow and half of his movie still took place nowadays after all. To be honest, at first, this mix really annoyed me and the constant switch between the two time periods, sometimes within a few seconds, was just jarring. Seriously, it felt like watching 2 movies at the same time and, while both stories were intriguing on their own, mixing them together never really worked and I wish Klapisch chose either of these 2 stories. And yet, I have to admit that it still slowly won me over after all. Indeed, the way this extended family got reunited was rather clunky but the concept certainly had some potential though and it was pretty neat how they grew closer. Seriously, while watching this movie, I had suddenly an urge to reach out to my cousins and see them (and I have a whole bunch of them in France, the Netherlands, in Germany and even in Spain). I also did appreciate how, with actually not much running time, they managed to develop these 4 characters. The lack of dramatic curve was also interesting (in fact in both tales) but I actually liked it. . The tale of Adèle going back to Paris to find her mother was more straightforward but, in this case, it was pretty neat how Klapisch managed to deliver a convincing vintage version of Paris. However, Klapisch’s vision of Paris back in the 19th century seemed really optimistic though. Indeed, when Adèle got there, she didn’t get robbed or raped, the two boys she met turned out to be very nice with her, in fact, everyone was super nice with her which did seem to be too good to be true. However even if it didn’t seem to be realistic, it was sweet and refreshing. Finally, making this family the descendants of Claude Monet was also really far-fetched and actually rather unnecessary. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look.