Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 1 post ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Sat Mar 13, 2021 8:55 pm 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2003 1:50 pm
Posts: 4859
Location: California/NYC
QUENTIN REYNAUD: FINAL SET/5IÈME SET (2020) - RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2021

Image
ALEX LUTZ IN FINAL SET

Last fling at Roland-Garros

Lutz is a comic who won three Cesar nominations for a mockumentary of a a French pop singer that he directed and starred in in 2018 called Guy. An Inrocks preview said he's "unrecognizable" in this new role in a serious film as a tennis player. But for his skill at transformation there was already his six-year performance as the blonde Catherine in the sketch series "Catherine et Liliane." This drama of a fading tennis player is a chance to do something serous and intense. He trained hard to prepare for it (though he learned shots, not games).

Lutz plays Thomas Edison, and plays his matches for us. He is a pro who at 17 was ranked as a young tennis prodigy but he has never shone. Now he is 37 and ranked 245th. (Lutz bravely plays young, five years older than his character). He gives tennis lessons, plays in obscure tournaments that net him only a few hundred euros more than the airline ticket and the fee. A contemporary has gone to osteopathy school and is happy with his new sports-related profession. Thomas, however, can't think of anything he was ever good of save the sport he's played since he was a small child. He has a shattered and arthritic knee that's been operated on three times; we look at the MRI.

As a last ditch attempt Thomas decides to try to compete in the French Open on the famous clay courts at Roland-Garros. High ranked young players are invited; he must qualify playing against hungry young athletes who will fight ruthlessly to get in. His wife Eve (Ana Girardot of Cédric Klapich's 2019 Deux Moi), once a tennis hopeful herself, and his tireless (increvable) mother Judith (Kristen Scott Thomas) advise him to give up. Thomas obsessively pushes forward.

He wins stage after stage with great effort. Then he arrives at the final one, and is matched with Damien Thosso (Jürgen Briand), the big French "jeune espoir" of the moment - whom he has encountered before only in the form of a cardboard life-sized figure pointing at him in a sporting goods store. Thosso is the mirror image of what he was 18 years before when he was badly beaten in the semi-finals, a trauma he has never really recovered from, though now, in a pubic interview, he denies thinking of the past.

This is both a conventional sports movie and not quite one. To do it credit it avoids easy drama. Everything is low keyed. But we work our way slowly and repetitiously through matches, with titles and scores, towards a big finale. It's inevitable. Tennis is what this is about. It's not, like Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, a thriller with a tennis match as an element of thriller suspense. Here the match is the center of the action. Thomas' wife, his mother, even his tiny boy are accoutrements aiding or marring his game in this last ditch effort.

As for Lutz, he looks a bit sad and, as Thomas' tennis maven mom tells him, he looks tired, but he also looks athletic and youthfully stylish with his blond locks and man-bun. We know the glamor of sport tennis has. The film without fanfare flashes the cool accoutrements, the silver cups, the rows ad rows of classy sports clothing, the photos (which, however are of Thomas age 17), and when he gets close to the finals, he's given a little scent mark to promote on his shirt, €5,000 a game. (The scene where this is offered is a rare moment of humor.) But the press reminds him of his failed career and his mother's criticisms. The courts transport car is denied to him now, reserved "for the top players." It is with all this behind him and in our mind that Thomas enters that final game against Thosso - whom his former coach has bet on against him.

The crucial match is well done. It's nice to see the last games entirely announced in French for the two French players, with young kids watching excitedly back at the tennis club. This is a very European sports movie after all, rueful, aware of the consequences, pro, balanced, neither starry-eyed and gushy nor facilely pessimistic. Although the final match against Thosso is duly climactic, it's really the whole process that is the focus for us to ponder afterward, not merely the outcome.

Director Reynaud himself, AlloCiné reports, played tennis at a very high level for a long time. He understood the rich meaning of the Rolland-Garros qualifying trials. Many of his friends were very promising. But "tennis is a pitiless sport: many saw their hopes dashed." Though a passionate horseman, Lutz had never played tennis. He trained four hours a day for four months to prepare for this role. It paid off in a solid, thought-provoking film about the mercilessness of the most competitive of sports when played at the highest level.

Final Set/5ème set, 105 mins., debuted Aug. 2020 at Angoulême and showed in Sept. at Zurich. Screened online at home for this review as part of the all virtual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Mar. 13, 2021. Release in France Aug. 18, 2021. See the preview interview with Reynaud and Lutz in AlloCiné.

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


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 1 post ] 

All times are UTC - 8 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 79 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group