Keswick Film Club - La Belle Époque

Synopsis

We have always tried to start a new season with something not too heavy, ideally comedic as well, which often leads us to France: this year is no exception. What better than a French comedy that also stars Daniel Auteuil and Fanny Ardant?

We join Victor and his wife Marianne having an evening out in La belle époque, courtesy of Time Travellers - "a company run by his son’s best friend Antoine. In a variation on Westworld, the company use movie sets and actors to construct elaborate fictions for wealthy clients"- Alan Hunter, Screen-Daily. Later, when Marianne throws Victor out, he decides to 'go back in time' again, this time to 1974, the year he first met Marianne. With a well-researched and rehearsed team, they allow him to revisit his best year and fall in love with Marianne all over again...or is he just falling for the actor playing Marianne..?

Director Bedos "successfully jumps through the many creative hoops he sets and in the process pulls off the most thoroughly entertaining big-screen French farce in a very long time, one that's both classical and modern; he uses all the old tropes but convincingly adorns them with up-to-the-minute attitudinal and technological trappings.

The director also gets immaculate work from his players, beginning with the superb old pros Auteuil and Ardant, who display the energy of players half their age and effortlessly layer the film with a veneer of Gallic knowingness and sophistication" - Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter.

Sounds like a good start to the season to us!