Nue Propriete (Private Property)

Let me start off by saying that I am biased - I generally don't like French films - they don't interest me (a French film with John Tuturro??!! - now that interests me). Maybe it has something to do with falling asleep during French class - I don't know. I do like other French things.....wine, cheese, kissing, bread, pencil thin moustaches, Napoleon complexes, mimes...so I'm not a total Francophobe.

The movie follows the divorced mother of twin boys. She wants to sell their house so she can open a B&B with her new lover. The twins, of course, oppose. We are subjected to various scenes of conflict - mainly involving boring conversations around the dinner table. The director later stated that he relied heavily on the dinner table to illustrate the mother feeding the "monsters" she has created. MONSTERS??!!! This guy should come to dinner at my house. If he saw the twins as monsters he'd see my family as the direct descendents of Satan. The movie comes to a predictable violent climax that really is not so violent.

You may be reaching the conclusion that I just can't appreciate subtlety. You might have a point. Unfortunately for you, this is about my opinion. My opinion is that this was a plodding movie that never really went anywhere. The Festival program GROSSLY oversold this movie by describing it as the film "with some of the best acting in the festival" (Noah Cowan - you would have LOVED my performance as Pony Boy in high school). I never felt like I got to know any of the characters in any depth. I felt the twins were horribly miscast and were far too old to be playing the age you were supposed to believe they were (they bathed together, their mother bathed in front of them, they double-rided (rode?) through the fields on their motorbike, they talked about girls while playing ping pong, they played video games). I suppose Isabelle Huppert's turn as the keeper of the monsters was OK - but one performance does not a movie make.

You'd have more fun spending 2 hours French kissing.