A Disappointing Continuation

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Denis Dercourt both wrote (with Jacques Sotty) and directed this very low key but very devastating tale of concentrated revenge. It has a tight script, a cast of very fine actors, and a pacing that holds the audience to the story wondering how the 'plan' will work out in the end. 10-year-old Mélanie (Julie Richalet) is a gifted piano student, the daughter of a butcher and his wife, whose studies provide her with the opportunity to enter the academy if she is successful in winning an audition. At the audition the chief judge is the accomplished pianist Ariane Fouchécourt (Catherine Frot) who allows an autograph seeker to disrupt Mélanie's audition, a disruption that results in breaking Mélanie's concentration: she does not win the audition and moreover she gives up the piano altogether. 10 years later Mélanie (the very beautiful Déborah François) works as an intern in a wealthy lawyer's office - M. Fouchécourt (Pascal Greggory) - who happens to be married to Ariane, now with a terrible stage fright because of an accident. When M. Fouchécourt needs a nanny to care for his young son Tristan (Antoine Martynciow), Mélanie ask for the job and moves to the mansion in the country where she tends after Tristan and admires Ariane's practicing. Ariane is preparing a concert in a trio with violinist and cellist wife and husband (Christine Citti and Jacques Bonnaffé). Ariane fears the performance but finds security when Mélanie offers to turn pages for her. A strong bond forms between the two, a bond that appears to go beyond music, and the concert results in success. The manner in which Mélanie works her way into Ariane's need and her response to advances made by the married cellist begin to divulge the intention of Mélanie's involvement with the Fouchécourt family. How she choreographs her revenge for her childhood disappointment is the direction the story takes to its end. Aside from the obvious fact that this film is in many ways an intense psychological thriller, the other joys offered are some excerpts from the music of Shostakovich, Bach, and Schubert. Each of the actors is superb and the manner in which director Dercourt leads us through this maze of belated revenge is truly fine filmmaking. Grady Harp

This is something I didn't think I was going to see, a Hitchcokian film from a foreign country, in this case France, kind of like Rebecca in some ways. Basically, as a child, ten year old Mélanie Prouvost (Julie Richalet) was a very talented piano player, and her parents decided she should sit the Conservatory entrance exam. The piano playing is going well, but then Mélanie is distracted by an autograph hunter wanting a singed photo from accomplished piano player and jury member Ariane (Catherine Frot), and when Mélanie starts playing again she starts going all over the place. Ten years pass since she failed her exam, with no criticism from the fellow jury members to Ariane, or her apology, twenty year old Mélanie (Déborah François) is working for a law firm. Chief lawyer Jean Fouchécourt (Pascal Greggory) needs someone to take care of his twelve year old son Tristan (Antoine Martynciow) during vacation time, and Mélanie offers her services. At their château outside Paris, she recognises that bitchy jury member Ariane as Jean's wife, recovering from a hit and run accident, and trying to reunite her music trio. With her ability to read music, and having established herself as a member of the family, Ariane is pleased to have Mélanie as her page turner. Of course when Mélanie gets her chance, she manages to spoil the second trio performance and turn Ariane into a nervous wreck, and there is no settled ending, well, Mélanie gets away with all and no punishment. Also starring Clotilde Mollet as Virginie, Xavier De Guillebon as Laurent, Christine Citti as Madame Prouvost and Jacques Bonnaffé as Monsieur Prouvost. The performances by both François and Frot are good, and the revenge element turns this class filled drama into a chilly psychological thriller. Very good!

Perhaps the sort of movie one would aspire to achieve in last year at film school rather than box office entertainment, but this most elegant chamber piece is pretty faultless. Unfortunately the whole thing is rather telegraphed from the start, so whilst this is technically a thriller, we are in the know and only waiting for the inevitable denouement. But, of course, I am being unfair, this is so well put together and nobody puts a foot wrong throughout. Well maybe the cellist, but that's just my little joke! Deborah François' central and crucial performance is a lesson to all. She does not have a mass of lines but she propels the film with her movement and her gaze. In retaliation for a childhood incident she coolly and very calculatedly seeks her revenge, and we helplessly watch it all unfold. We are left to marvel in morbid fascination of what one person can/will do to others, to right what they see as a wrong. Engrossing and not overlong.

Responding to Alison's request for the name of the Shostakovich piece played, it is his Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Opus 67. It's Shostakovich in rare "Jewish" mode (he was not Jewish, but when he used Jewish idioms it was usually to commemorate a Jewish friend). I have a recording of it played by the Beaux Arts Trio, and it's very fine. And it's 24 minutes long, not the 2 minute excerpt played in the Radio France concert in the movie. Sadly, and for no reason I can detect, the composer of the film's incidental music found it necessary to intrude and impose his "talents" on this and other established classics, rendering the effect of the Bach, Schubert, and Shostakovich pieces fairly impotent. Not this guy's finest hour, by any means.Oh, and the equally brief excerpt of a Schubert Piano Trio played for the American in the movie -- that's one of two he wrote in his maturity, and the two are easily found recorded by many artists. Two recommended recordings are the Stern-Rose-Istomin Trio and again the Beaux Arts Trio.Although a bad page turner can be deadly during a concert, the performer really ought to know the piece well enough to be able to play through a page break up to the next opportunity to turn the page oneself. That is the central disconnect with real life that this movie displays. And if the pianist is so shell-shocked from her accident that she gets stage fright so easily, she really would not be able to last very long on the concert circuit in any event. In that respect, Melanie actually did Ariane a big favor by doing what she did. So there's lots to puzzle about in this movie, things that strike directly at the heart of characters' motivations and so weaken the story.