Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


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PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 6:22 pm 
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VINCENT MACAIGNE AND KATE MORAN IN STUBBORN

Lonely French guy in New York

In this movie Vincent Macaigne, who has become a regular of little French films, plays "Vincent," a stubborn (maybe just stupid) Frenchman who goes to New York in pursuit of a certain Barbara, a French-speaking American woman (played by Kate Moran) whom he had a brief affair with in Paris and thinks he is madly in love with. She is done with him and lives with a new tall muscular together American boyfriend (daytime soap veteran Murray Bartlett) who is in stark contrast to the stumpy, frumpy Vincent. Soulful and innocent in manner, Macaigne is markedly balding on top and front, with long drooping hair on the sides and a perpetual two-day beard. He has big eyebrows and sweet, moony eyes. He has already played a professional Lonely Guy in the films of Guillaume Brac, and can be seen in the so-so 2 Autumns, 3 Winters by Sébastien Betbeder and Brac's Tonnerre. This time, collaborating with Arme Hostiou on a short called Kingston Avenue and this expansion of it, to whose writing and improvisation he contributes, Macaigne settles down into the Lonely Guy role, getting some laughs by exhibiting with everyone but the French-speaking Barbara his near-complete inability to communicate in English.

Barbara tells Vincent to go away and buys him a return plane ticket. Instead he hangs around, trying various futile gestures to get Barbara's attention and, absurdly, accept his proposal of marriage. Drowning his sorrows at a bar he meets Sophie (Sofie Rimestad), who goes around with him, including a late night visit to Coney Island. Sophie obviously has taken to him, but he dismisses her rather cruelly after another rejection from Barbara. Time goes by and Vincent is still in New York, working in a fish factory, and even when his younger sister and father come to visit, also with a return ticket for him, he refuses to go back, a lost expatriate for love. A comic meander full of gags and improvisation turns into a sad story -- and also an expression of the French fascination with the potent energy of New York City, whose beauties sometimes come through in the garish but underlit cinematography.

But the trouble with this film is how lame and limp its improvisation by Macaigne is. He literally just seems to be occupying space. Despite a few charming or appealing moments, the ridiculous morphs eventually into the merely tiresome.

Stubborn/Une histoire américaine, 85 mins., had its French theatrical release 11 February 2015 to mediocre reviews (AlloCiné press rating 2.8). Screened for this review as part of the FSLC/UniFrance-sponsored Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at the Walter Reade Theater and the IFC Center in New York in March 2015, its North American premiere.

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