Filming Locations: Brasserie La Coupole - 102 Boulevard Montparnasse, Paris 14, Paris, France
Opening Weekend: €5,697
(Netherlands)
(29 July 2007)
(3 Screens)
Gross: €16,286
(Netherlands)
(29 July 2007)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Germany:
(European Film Market)
Did You Know?
Trivia:
L'ecole nationale des Chartes is a school located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, the Sorbonne, and specialises in training students for work in auxiliary areas of history, such as archivists, librarians or teacher-researchers.
User Review
the French do romance differently
Rating: 8/10
I liked this film. The French formula for romantic comedy doesn't
depend on the characters being rich, young and handsome, an opulent
setting , and no old people (except for very minor characters). French
directors find romance in the humbler areas of Paris as well as the
flashier parts. Camille (Audrey Tautou), an art school dropout, works
as a cleaner, or "surface engineer" as she likes to be called. She
lives in a garret in the same old apartment building as Philibert
(Laurent Stocker), who is young and good-looking, but is the French
equivalent of a dim gentleman. Philibert sells postcards for a living.
Notwithstanding a stutter, he aspires to a career on the stage. He
shares his rather grand but dowdy apartment, his grandmother's former
home, with the gruff Franck (Guillaume Canet), a womanizing chef.
Franck is pre-occupied with looking after his elderly grandmother
Paulette (Francoise Bertin), who is hospitalized after a fall. When
Camille falls ill Philibert invites Camille to convalesce at his place.
Soon she is striking sparks off grumpy old Franck.
Philibert isn't gay; it's just that his romantic interests lie
elsewhere. It is Pauline who draws Franck and Camille together. The
French title "Ensemble C'est Tout" ("Together, That's All") says it
all, really. (I haven't a clue what this film has to do with hunting
and gathering).
Audrey Tautou has just about got the market for sexy French waifs sewn
up. I've seen her in several other films and her performances are
similar. Guillaume Canet lets us see his gruff chef's soft side and
Francoise Bertin also evokes sympathy for someone made tiresome by old
age. The part of Philibert's love interest Aurelia is severely
truncated (the result of putting a 600 page novel into 100 minutes of
film). This also tends to sideline Philibert later in the film.
I very much liked Jean de Floriet and Manon des Sources, directed by
Claude Berri 20 years ago (two other literary adaptations). He is a
very conservative, straightforward director, but he can produce some
very vivid work. One very touching scene here is when Philibert goes to
a speech therapist to cure his stutter. The therapist, Phillipe van
Eeckhout, is one in real life and treated Berri after a recent stroke
damaged his speaking ability.
So, we have no glamorous stars (though Audrey Tautou is big in France)
and no shimmering background. But it's a warm-hearted story with some
real emotion and, dare I say it, a happy ending. And here's something
for the nit-pickers. Franck would never have got to London from the
Gare du Lyon (except via the connecting suburban RER line). Paris -
London trains leave from the magnificent Gare du Nord. But who cares?
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