As an exercise in understanding the power of movie music, imagine this same movie with sinister strings instead of playful woodwinds—and suddenly a light-hearted tale of a woman at a crossroads becomes an unnerving thriller about a woman stuck on a trip with a predator. Diane Lane plays Anne Lockwood, wife of a Hollywood producer (Alec Baldwin), who is forced by an earache to bow out of a flight from Cannes, and instead travels by car to Paris with her husband’s colleague, jovial Frenchman Jacques (Arnaud Viard). Writer/director Eleanor Coppola emphasizes Anne’s transitional life moment—recently empty nest, possible career change—and Lane finds subtle touches of melancholy in a character who could have come off as a woe-is-me rich white lady. But Viard’s character offers a strange counter-point, often coming off as stereotypically French in his chain-smoking, womanizing and celebration of wine and cheese. He’s certainly not an obvious choice for the guy a woman might find appealing if she’s pondering a mid-life crisis affair; he’s also kind of creepy to a degree that undercuts the lightness Coppola often seems to be aiming for.
By
Scott Renshaw