Wow! Such a good movie.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Captivating biopic directed by French director, novelist, comics artist Joann Sfar.If Gainsbourg was a river that ran deep in your world, if he was part of your cultural fabric, you will fall in love with the film, grateful that he has been recreated—beautifully—, that you can spend two hours in his company again, trying to puzzle out what happened to him. I loved witnessing once again the remarkable eloquence of this man of letters, his musical and poetic genius, his cutting wit, cheekiness, poker face, understated singing style, the subversiveness that was present from the outset, his vulnerability, his antics, drunken debauchery, quiet rage, the ears, the hooter, the string of alluring and high-profile women...Each episode blends into the next seamlessly - a rare feat in a biopic.I loved witnessing the love with which one artist, Sfar, paid homage to another.A feast.

The setup: A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.The verdict: The acting is effective, save for a few scenes. The metaphors are so abundant, it takes two or three viewings to catch them all. I was deeply impressed, but from an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were needed. Worth a look if this sort of storyline appeals to your sensibilities. It is simple yet effective and you'll likely like it at least a bit.

This is an outstandingly original film.The performances across the board are superb, the story, for all it's wildly tangential aesthetics engages and often grips.But most of all, its dark exuberance makes it oddly joyful driving the viewer open to it into Gainsbourgs' frame of mind. Imaginative use (SPOILER ALERT) of his haunting if surreal alter ego. In fact this overtly comic-like and "unreal" wilful cipher for Gainsbourg trumps the great risk of turning the picture into farce, and instead brings us closer to the humanity, inner conflict and creative insights of the artist in evolution.I strongly recommend it.

As an Englishman I didn't have as much of an idea of Serge Gs career as most of the previous critics here, so a lot of this film was pretty educational. However, it wasn't a literal biopic by any means, using the cartoon characters alongside Serge (quite well, I thought) and the latter half of his life (I didn't realise when or whether he'd died until I'd read one of your reviewers!) seemed to tail off into nothing, even more than his increasing physical degradation was suggesting.I found the emphasis on his sexual groundbreaking and role as a general iconoclast a bit similar to the film "Mesrine" which came out a year or two back - a similar time period was covered in that - masses of smoke and sexism! The actresses playing Jane Birkin and Juliette Greco are good (especially Jane Bs English/French accent) but "Brigitte Bardot" less so, and the scenes with her do go on a bit (although some of the poses are meant to correspond with real Bardot roles like "Et Dieu Crea La Femme" and "La Mepris".The music fits in well with the film and, surprisingly - with the film making style - the intrusion of early 1960s loud pop, and of reggae, is quite a shock to the system, as it is intended to be, and was at the time. Perhaps I'm missing some of the French references, but in general the milieu Gainsbourg moved in might not be best served by a "straight" biopic with a Nicholas Cage-type performance, but the surrealist cartoons do detract from the picture we get of Serge - and believe me, it's not that easy to like him! I wasn't that keen on the precocious young boy stage of his life either - a bit too "that's the French way boys grow up" all very pre-Simone de Beauvoir.Anyway shouldn't carp too long - I was glad I saw it and a lot will stay with me, although I'll remember the Django-type guitar playing possibly longer than the (apparently rather few) Gainsbourg songs which graced the soundtrack.