So much average

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

If you heard the director in the extras, the movie is about the power of music to inspire, to heal, the heart of true artists.Now, forget all this: the movie drags behind those expectations.If French movies (unlike Americans) are much closer to the people, the big defect of our movies is that french writers (unlike Americans) have no imagination: hence, french movies is often people simply talking in a house and that's what really happens here as Cecile plays a realtor and his client, Gerard the singer, doesn't even care about houses: this is his way to have date with her. Singing is treated with the same treachery. In fact, it's more about the love of two depressive people and i realize that in that situation, their romance is also depressive. To cast Cecile is thus unfortunate because it extinguish her fire and smiles. I won't comment the absurdity of their first night (so unreal that you cant believe their following romance) to keep the only good song that i discovered again thanks to the movie: "Je n'aurais pas le temps". It's a wonderful song about our mortality and the endless beauty of life, all that the movie isn't.

One of the more remarkable things about Xavier Giannoli's French film The Singer is that it predates Aronofsky's The Wrestler by about two years. Like The Wrestler, Giannoli's film is about a man people of a certain age within the film's universe would no doubt look back on with fondness when thinking back to specific people within the annuls of a very specific, rather popular medium; that of music rather than professional wrestling entertainment. It is the tale of that man, much more older now, at a point in which dishevelment and old age appear to have kicked in; a realising of one's loneliness and one's stone cut chances passing one by. It is first and foremost a love story, a fascinating study of the duality that exists between the lead and another woman, whom, is rounded enough and suffers enough from her own problems to keep her from being a one dimensional love interest.The cut and dry figure of Gérard Depardieu is that of whom embodies the lead, the titular singer named Alain Moreau; a man we first see occupying a small and dingy little dressing room the local establishment appear to additionally store the vacuum cleaners inside of. Outside in the main hall, his portrait on a poster paints a far more positive image of him in his looking happy and holding a rose in the process as the place fills up with elderly people ready for a night of entertainment and socialising. The item of the strained differences in the man's existence as to what the public see and what's honestly lurking underneath, here, being the two different things which are brought to our attention. His life sees him work through the night with a band; their coming to an end with the conclusion of another gig seeing Moreau leave the establishment upon payment in the morning, both bleary eyed and a little shell shocked at the bright early light to an accompaniment of gentle electronic music. Moreau appears lonely, he sleeps at a relatively large home by himself and lives a generally muted existence with what seems to be nothing bar a pet fawn of some kind, whom totters around the house his closest form of company.The sense of life generally passing Moreau by is highlighted by way of a number of amusing quips to do with the distinction between young and old; the then and now; the modern and the classical. The item of 'older' people attending his shows is verbally illustrated by a character whom deems his audience members "too old for nightclubs" and so they attend Moreau's shows whereas Moreau's own views on the contemporary item of karaoke and the ability for any swinging-guy to have a bash at singing up on a stage, however badly, is dismissed. The greater extent of this particular statement enabling us to draw on comparisons to similar contemporary opinions extended to other art forms and mediums, namely television and cinema in the form of the rise of more online based opinions which hardened academics often state are trivialising forms of journalism if they aren't already destroying it.Through an old friend named Bruno, played by the ever dependable Mathieu Amalric so-much-so that he just appears to blend into proceedings, who used to be a bit of a gambler and now owns an estate agency; Moreau meets Marion (De France), a divorced woman who's dishevelment and downbeat nature matches that of our lead's and whom works with Bruno at the company. The subject matter and material the film eventually comes to cover is handled in a methodical and mature manner by director, also the writer, Giannoli. Moreau's organising of house visits purely to see her and the manner in which he keeps coming back neither as lecherous nor as misjudged as it might have been following the early spending of a night together. Principally, the two of them are linked more intrinsically by way of the nature of their jobs; Moreau the singer on stage at a designated place so as to guide customers through their nights out involving drinking and socialism, as Moreau himself verbally identifies that "they come here to drink champagne, that's all". In regards to Marion's role, her turning up to another designated establishment so as to show potential customers around a home they might buy bring to attention the fact that both people are present in their jobs, but not crucial; they add a dimension to an experience but appear largely unnecessary to proceedings as the greater extent of the trip unfolds around them.The character is explored in a fashion that sees come across as so much more than a mere photogenic supporting act, whom cannot get a man despite these qualities, and must act purely as the subject of another man's attraction. Their coming together is well observed and nicely unfolded; complications linked to Marion's own life situations involving grief additionally given ample attention. The film as a whole cracks along at a right old pace, its internal music propping everything up with a series of belting tracks which hop between fast and punchy numbers to slower, more resonating ballads nicely echoing the film's own ever-shifting atmosphere as the lead attempts to get to know his supporting female around the ever present Bruno. Giannoli's film is a mature mediation on middle age, a wonderfully involving tale of romantic affection and a well constructed study of two people at respective points in their lives.

The middle-age tacky singer of romantic songs Alain Moreau (Gérard Depardieu) is singing with his orchestra in the Royat Casino. When he meets the younger real-state agent Marion (Cécile De France) in the show with his friend Bruno (Mathieu Amalric), they have one night stand and Marion leaves the room without saying goodbye to him. Alain has a crush on Marion and seeks her out in her office telling that he wants to buy a house. Alain finds that she has a son and the distant Marion gets closer to Alain but the unrequited love drags him down."Quand j'Étais Chanteur" is a weird and messy romance. Gérard Depardieu and his character Alain Moreau are totally out of the league of the gorgeous Cécile De France and they do not have any chemistry along the whole story. The tacky songs of the movie are recommended for very specific audiences where I do not include myself; therefore, it is hard and boring to see Gérard Depardieu singing those songs. The footage of Stromboli (1950) is totally out of the context and last but not the least, the resemblance of Cécile De France with Patricia Arquette is amazing. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Quando Estou Amando" ("When I am in Love")

The London Film Festival is only three days old and already we've had the finest film, this one. Not that the pretentious pseuds who actually run the BFI will agree - if they did I'd be seriously frightened - even as I write they've probably got scouts out scouring the world for something from the Galapogas Islands shot from the point of view of a turtle and redolent with her inner torment as she watches her offspring being picked off by scavengers as they make for the sea but those of us who actually LIKE film as, dare I say it, Entertainment and think it is at its best exploring the Human Condition with tenderness, sensitivity, wit, etc will respond to this entry as positively as last night's packed audience i.e. with applause and cheers. It scored heavily at Cannes and on its release in France last month there was agreement amongst the critics and punters that this was Depardieu's best role in a long time and I am pleased to endorse that opinion. The problem with someone as versatile as Depardieu who can do anything is that he's frequently prevailed upon - and too often consents - to do Everything. Here he is inch perfect as a middle-aged third-rate singer - the English equivalent would be Vince Hill with charisma - making a living in clubs and discos and waging a war against karoake. It's a measure of his charm that his ex-wife, now his manager and living with a new partner, still loves him and watches over him like a mother. Short of a mid-life crisis he hits upon - both literally and figuratively - Cecile de France, half his age, a single mom and 'troubled' as they say in the soaps. As a rule Cecile de France is asked to light up the screen with her faux Audrey Hepburn smile as she did so winningly in her last outing Danielle Thompson's brilliant Fauteuils d'orchestre but here she is allowed to do 'serious' and save the smile for isolated moments which is, of course, doubly effective. At best the relationship is doomed and both parties know this deep down but the joy for the audience is how they get to that good place that we all covet. This is the kind of wonderful movie that those BFI mandarins probably used to love themselves when they were kids and thought that if they went to work for the BFI they'd be able to watch stuff like this all day long and get paid for it then, having joined, they realised that pleasure is no match for pretension. For film lovers only.