Jet Lag, a witty French romantic comedy, aims low and flies high.
I don't want to oversell this movie. It is a lightweight flick. Perhaps only the French can make such a breezy charmer out of so slight a plot idea. But here it is and it works.
Two strangers are at Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport in suburban Paris. It is a holiday weekend. The airport is bustling. Then, as is typical in France these days, the pilots go on strike, the airport's computers go down and the weather turns nasty. Flights are cancelled.
The movie supposes that the two strangers are forced to interact in the ensuing chaos. They set off a chain reaction that changes the course of their lives. It may not be realistic, but the results will please you.
It helps that two wonderful French stars, Casablanca-born Jean Reno (The Professional) and Oscar-winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) carry the story.
Reno plays a hardened businessman whose gruff exterior hides a confused personal life. Now en route to Munich to search for a woman he thinks he may love, he is teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His rage is bottled but there is pressure building under the cork.
Binoche plays a cosmetologist and makeup artist who is facing, for the first time, the facts of her tawdry life. She is in a brutal, abusive relationship and has decided to flee to Mexico City.
Neither of these emotionally fractured misfits is ready for a new relationship. Putting them together can only confuse everything -- and set up the comic collisions.
There is a knack to making romantic comedies work. You have to at least like the people involved, even if they're emotional messes. No problem here: It is easy to like almost anyone the adroit Reno plays, even when he is a cad. Binoche is a French goddess so there is a huge sympathy for her, too.
Then there is the question of language and the droll exchanges that make romantic comedies sparkle. For the template, check out classics such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) or even recent successes such as Two Weeks Notice (2002).
Thompson, directing only her second feature film, has no problem with the dialogue. She has been writing comedies for 40 years, launching her career by co-writing with her comedian father Gerard Oury. Other credits include landmark French comedies such as Cousin Cousine (1975) and Queen Margot (1995) More recently, in 1999, she had a home country success with La Buche, co-writing with her son, Christopher Thompson. That was also her directorial debut.
So it is a pleasure to see both the writing and the directing combining so effortlessly in Jet Lag. The result is a romantic comedy with just enough heart and soul to keep us flying.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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