JAMEL DEBBOUZE, AGNES JAOUI, JEAN-PIERRE BACRI IN LET IT RAIN

Happy families are all alike....this isn't that kind

This new film by the Jaoui-Bacri team (Agnes and her ex-husband Jean-Pierre), together for at least the fourth time, hasn't got a US distributor but it ought to. The pair have perfected a personal school of dry irony (mellowed some here) that allows people to be who they are, including grumpy, rude, or incompetent. There is little self-consciousness and little that is forced here. Agathe Villanova (Jaoui) is a feminist writer who is turning to politics; Michel (Bacri) is an independent, not-so-successful filmmaker who wants to do a documentary about powerful women. Agathe is in the south of France for a week or two at the family summer home to help sort through her the effects of her mother, who died a year ago. , She's also planning to speak at some political rallies. At this point she agrees to let Michel interview her. To help with this project Michel enlists Karim (the very popular in France Jamel Debbouze), a young man of North African descent whose mother Mimouna (Mimouna Hadji) just happens to have been the Villanovas' housekeeper all their lives.

Karim isn't happy with how, in the Villanova house, Stephane (Guillaume De Tonquedec) treats his mother. Stephane's the husband of Florence (Guillaume De Tonquedec), Agathe's sister. It also turns out that Agathe is madely in love with Michel, and wants to leave Stephane.

While Agathe is staying at the rather posh Hotel Mas Blanc des Alpilles, Karim works at the much more humble Hotel Le Terminus, as does his girlfriend, Aurelie (Florence Loiret-Caille). There relationship is on-and-off. The same may be said of Agathe and her boyfriend or companion or...something Antoine (Frederic Pierrot)--he has difficulty being with a woman so independent-spirited he seems non-existent at times.

These details add flavoring to the soup, but the most memorable moments are the oddly misfired efforts of Michel and Karim to film Agathe. They both tend to provoke her and more than hint that her feminism is silly and overbearing. But she isn't wholly resistant to these suggestions--especially when she is disconcerted and rather humbled when Antoine announces that he's fed up and is leaving her and returning to Paris. Though this film is directed by a woman, it's more then willing to cast a cool eye on feminist principles. On the other hand, one of its pleasures and the secret to its poise is that it has no aze to grind. This is where the presence of Debbouze and Hadji both liven things up and add balance. They've suffered more discomfort all their lives than a privileged white woman, though Mimouna has the immigrant suffer-in-silence stance and insists everything's always fine; at the same time, she has enjoyed raising Florence and Agathe and is like a member of the family. But Agathe encourages her to leave to live with her sister and work elsewhere since now Florence and her husband can't pay her a salary any more.

The film title Parlez-moi de la pluie is a line from singer-songwriter Georges Brassens, "talk to me about rain, not about good weather." Jaoui and Bacri aren't interested in things that go right. This is as true of the relationships in the film as of the constantly interrupted filming of Ms. Villanova. As this film is mellower, its characters are more complex, and less focused on triumphs or humiliations than their predecessors. It shows the team in top form. Debbouze is particularly supple, rounded, honest, and complex here; this was a dream role for him, something close to who he really is himself.

The Taste of Otherss was nominated for an Oscar; Look at Me was shown in the US in 2005; the latter was part of the 2004 New York Film Festival. Let It Rain just opened in Paris, and is part of the London Film Festival. Jaoui and Bacri have collaborated on the screenplays of other films that she has not directed, such as Cedric Klapisch's Un air de famille and Cuisine et dépendances, which Bacri wrote, and he and Jaoui acted in but Philippe Muyl directed. This may not be a marriage that survived on earth, but in artistic terms, it was made in heaven.

Seen at the New York Film Festival 2008. US theatrical release through IFC Films began June 18, 2010.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.