The Singer

Alain Moreau (Gérard Depardieu) is an over-the-hill pop singer who is hanging onto the vestiges of a career in Clermont-Ferrand in the centre of provincial France Then he meets Marion (Cécile de France) a young single mother getting over a broken relationship and love changes everything.

On one level Xavier Giannoli's Quand J'Etais Chanteur is yet another instalment in the seemingly never-ending supply of French films that feature a romantic relationship between a dishevelled non-conformist alpha male and an impossibly chic younger female. In this respect, whilst a huge success in France, from an orthodox Anglo-Saxon point-of-view it suffers from a lack of plausibility. On the other hand it benefits from a fine performance by Depardieu in the role of an older man who knows that he should know better but finds in love's folly a new lease of life. Giannoli who also wrote this affectionately observed story of two lonely souls, indeed of human loneliness in general, has also found a beguiling format for his story one that allows Depardieu to croon some nicely wistful ballads, most fittingly and humorously in the final number (do stay for the end credits) in which he sings the title song, which literally and more meaningfully translates as When I Was A Singer. As a portrait of the, to us, strange world of superannuated French pop this film has its charms.

Yet, for all the pleasure of the performances and low-key provincial ambiance, the film suffers from a lack of texture. There are just too many melancholy sighs from Depardieu and too many lingering looks from Marion in a film which excises virtually anything from their lives other than their painful romance. There is allusion to Marion's back story but it is a little too slight to have much meaning and although Cécile de France gives a fine performance as the fragile woman there really isn't enough substance in her relationship to Alain to stand even sympathetic scrutiny.

The Singer remains very much within the parameters of French romantic fantasy albeit a charming enough example of the style.

 

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