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| A SINGLE GIRL (LA FILLE SEULE)
(director/writer: Benoit
Jacquot; screenwriter: Jerome Beaujour;
cinematographer: Caroline
Champetier; editor: Pascale Chavance;
music: Dvorak;
cast: Virginie
Ledoyen (Valerie), Benoit Magimel (Remi), Dominique
Valadie (the Mother), Vera Briole (Sabine), Michel
Bompoil (Jean-Marc), Guillemette Grobon (Mme Charles),
Thang-Long (Mr.
Tranh), Aladin Reibel (M. Sarre),
Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc (Patrice), Virginie
Emane (Fatiah); Runtime: 90; MPAA Rating: NR;
producer: Philippe
Carcassonne; Strand Releasing; 1995-France-in
French with English subtitles) "A fascinating revival of the French New Wave for a very 1990's slice-of-life film." Reviewed
by Dennis Schwartz A fascinating revival of the French New Wave for a very 1990's slice-of-life film directed with verve by Benoit Jacquot ("Seventh Heaven"/"Sade"/"The School of Flesh") and co-written by him and Jerome Beaujour. The moody beautiful
19-year-old Valerie Sergent (Virginie Ledoyen) tells her sullen unemployed
Parisian boyfriend Remi (Benoit Magimel) she's four
weeks pregnant and wants to keep the child, even if he
doesn't. They are meeting at a café early in the morning, just
before she's to report for her first day of work as a
room-service waitress at a nearby luxury hotel. This
leads to a spat and she tells Remi she's late for work
and to sit tight, that she'll meet him here in an hour
after the breakfast rush and they'll continue the
touchy discussion about their relationship. For the
film's next hour we follow in real time how Valerie handles the hectic job and
its pressures that includes grief from cranky hotel
guests, a hostile female boss (Guillemette Grobon) subjecting Valerie to a
humiliating job interview over why she left her last
job, a piggish waiter (Michel Bompoil) who makes a clumsy pass, a
frosty female co-worker (Vera Briole) who is jealous of her
beauty and just the stress in getting the hang of the
job. After an hour there's a break in the action and
Valerie sneaks out of the hotel to meet again with
Remi. The part of the unique film
showing how it is on the job is dazzling; it lets you
into the behind the scenes operation of a major hotel
and leaves you feeling pleasantly dizzy. But the epilogue, also filmed in
real time, is merely conventional drama, showing
Valerie's single mom (Dominique Valadie) minding her working-girl
single mom daughter's baby boy in a Paris park. It
seems tacked on and very ordinary, losing the quirky
nervous energy that fuels the main part of the film
with its tension, its sense of urgency and its
morality concerns. REVIEWED ON 4/15/2012 GRADE: B+ Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |