A Good Year

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criddic3
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Post by criddic3 »

The movie is pleasant but nowhere near Oscar-worthy in terms of performances. Finney has an extremely minimal amount of screentime. Crowe doesn't deliver a knock-out like he has many times before, but he's "agreeable," as Hustler says. I would give it **1/2
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Post by Reza »

The only character in this film who is a breath of fresh air is the one played by the sassy Indian actress Archie Panjabi (as Crowe's assistant). She reminded me of Joan Blondell and Aline Macmahon in all those fast paced comedies of the 1930s.
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Post by Damien »

More than ever, the director lives up to his name, Didley Squatt.
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Post by Hustler »

I´ve just seen it and surpsisingly it´s not boring at all. Russell Crowe delivers a fresh and agreeable performance. Ridley Scott doesn´t need to demonstrate his talent and versatility which is exhibited once again, with independence of the genre that chooses to film. Cinematography (Phillip Le Sourd) is impeccable.
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Post by Reza »

What a change of pace for both Ridley and Russell. Unfortunately, it's also such a boring film!
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Post by Sonic Youth »

A Good Year

Steven Rosen in Los Angeles
Screendaily

Dir: Ridley Scott. U.S. 2006. 118mins.


Ridley Scott's A Good Year, which re-teams the director with Russell Crowe, should have been an easily likeable and amiable romantic comedy, adapted from the same-name novel by Peter Mayle, who has had a huge following since his 1989 memoir A Year In Provence. But this tale of a harried investment trader who finds love and inner peace after inheriting a French vineyard is marred with an antic, Richard Lester-like slapstick spirit that is jarring, feels dated and proves a surprisingly poor showcase for Crowe's talents.

Audiences lured to the film thinking it will be a sweet change-of-pace for the Gladiator star will find it a flat experience for which the beautiful scenery only partially compensates. Those looking for a travelogue-style romance a la Under The Tuscan Sun or Chocolat or a knowing enquiry into the appeal of vineyards will come out disappointed.

Scott and Crowe are both big names worldwide, but they draw best with sweeping, period-piece dramas. Their 2000 feature Gladiator was a $458m worldwide smash, while Scott's 2005 Kingdom Of Heaven earned $212 globally, although only $47m of that came from the US; similarly Crowe's 2003 Master & Commander grossed $210m worldwide.

A Good Year is likely to do more modest business, possibly along the lines of the $66m total that Scott's quirky and contemporary Matchstick Men took. (Expect beefier returns for Scott and Crowe’s next collaboration, the already announced American Gangster.)

Perhaps its best prospects lie with older conservative mainstream crowds, drawn by the theme and the Mayle name, especially in the UK where the BBC TV series A Year In Provence was well received.

Crowe plays smug, supercilious and viciously competitive English trader Max Skinner, who calls his employees "lab rats”, although his cynically impertinent assistant (a sparklingly amusing Archie Panjabi) begrudgingly likes him.

When his Uncle Henry (Albert Finney, shown in flashbacks) dies and leaves him his French vineyard and estate, Max goes there to sell it. Slowly but surely, the French joie de vivre gets to him - helped in great part by his attraction to the sensuous but hot-tempered waitress Fanny (Marion Cotillard). But when a young, pretty American cousin he did not know existed (Abbie Cornish) turns up, Max’s plans get complicated.

On paper Ridley Scott should have been perfect for a feature like this – not only is he a neighbour of Peter Mayle, whose novel has been adapted by Marc Klein, but he encouraged him to write the source story in the first place according to marketing sources. And while A Good Year may sound formulaic, it's also potentially charming if played straight.

But that must have bored Scott, possibly because of the BBC adaptation of Mayle’s earlier work. Instead his direction keeps disrupting the film’s narrative flow with showy camera and editing tricks, inappropriate pop music and scenes in which characters that just don't play as cute and funny as he thinks.

There's one moment when Fanny tries to punish Max – who is unaware he has nearly run her over - by turning on the water in a muck-filled swimming pool in which he's stuck. But it simply undermines, rather than establishes, their chemistry.

Crowe himself seems to want to forego any possible romanticism, with a hair parting that feels goofy and some unappealing outfits. Such a look is reflected in his performance, which hems, haws and sputters all over the place searching for humor, as if he wanted to be in a screwball comedy, like Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby.

Marion Cotillard has a devastatingly alluring smile and she plays her part as if she never for a second doubts her power over men. That makes it all the stranger that the chemistry between her and Crowe is so wan.

As Max’s long-lost cousin and possible rival for the vineyard, Abbie Cornish is a very pleasant, fresh-faced and relaxed presence who can be sexy, funny or little-sister friendly as need be.

Buried in the story – and alluded to only in dribs and drabs - is a pretty involving suspense yarn about the estate's long-time staff producing a secret wine and using the regular, bitter-tasting product as a cover. There's a touch of Da Vinci Code intrigue to this - if only the film had drawn out the angle more.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

A Good Year

By TODD MCCARTHY
Variety


A light rose from Ridley Scott compared to the hefty cabernets he usually turns out, "A Good Year" is a divertissement, an excuse for the filmmakers and cast to enjoy a couple of months in Provence and for the audience, by proxy, to spend a couple of hours there. A simple repast consisting of sometimes strained slapsticky comedy, a sweet romance and a life lesson learned, this little picnic doesn't amount to much but goes down easily enough to generate OK B.O. returns.

Story of a rapacious London bonds trader tempted to opt out of the fast lane for life at an inherited chateau is more than a bit self-referential for both Scott and the source book's author, Peter Mayle. The two worked together in the advertising and commercials world 30 years ago, with Mayle eventually giving it up to write books, beginning with the massively successful "A Year in Provence" in 1991. Scott also has a home and vineyard in the area.

So when the allure of the simple life is expressed here, it is only on the most fantastic terms, with the best wine, food, views and women already in place for instantaneous consumption. As a real-life fantasy it's hard to beat; as a film, it's an agreeable slice of lifestyles-of-the-rich voyeurism.

After a brief prologue devoted to conceited British boy Max (Freddie Highmore) being indoctrinated in the finer points of wine by his life-lusting Uncle Henry (Albert Finney) at the latter's estate in the south of France, Max (Russell Crowe) enters as an even more self-satisfied adult on the trading floor, finessing a fantastic profit in one session that raises the ire of his rivals.

Notified that his uncle has died and left him the chateau, he flies down to wrap up the paperwork to facilitate a quick sale of the property, which promises to net Max another small fortune. Heedless of the feelings of his uncle's longtime winemaker Francis (Didier Bourdon) and the latter's wife, Ludivine (Isabelle Candelier), Max cares about nothing but money and winning, and while in France relishes driving past a bunch of bicyclists and yelling gleefully at them "Lance Armstrong!"

Given that the estate's little dog is named Tati and that clips from "M. Hulot's Holiday" and "Mon Oncle" are glimpsed at one point, it's safe to assume Scott admires the great French comic filmmaker Jacques Tati. Along those lines, Crowe takes quite a few pratfalls in the course of the film, including one into a waterless swimming pool with walls too high to climb up, a predicament that allows him to begin his sparring match with lovely local restaurant owner Fanny (Marion Cotillard), who's sworn off men.

Rather than for its more rambunctious physicality, pic is often more appealing in its throwaway asides, such as the one in the pool when a filthy Max mincingly mutters the famous lines from "Lawrence of Arabia" about why Lawrence likes the desert: "It's clean. I like it because it's clean."

A convenient job suspension keeps Max in Provence longer than planned, long enough for the place to cast its spell upon him. One surprise is the arrival of Christie (Abbie Cornish), a beautiful girl from Napa coming to meet her biological father -- none other than the deceased Henry -- for the first time. French laws allowing claims of illegitimate children throw the inheritance into question, while the mystery surrounding the source of a very pricey vin de garage, as opposed to the lousy stuff openly grown on the property, gives Max further pause.

But in a story like this, it can only be a woman who makes the blind man see the light. And so it is when Max and Fanny, two young but hard souls -- who, they figure out, once met as children on the land -- finally come together in an endearing breakthrough scene extremely well played by Crowe and Cotillard. For a moment, pic approaches a level of genuine intoxication.

His hair smoothed and straightened into something like a 1920s look, and outfitted with glasses much of the time, Crowe executes a lightweight change of pace with his charisma entirely intact, even if he still hasn't mastered an English accent that fits comfortably with Finney's or Highmore's. There are moments when the enchanting Cotillard resembles a Gallic, dark-haired Reese Witherspoon, and Aussie thesp Cornish, in her first Hollywood film, continues her quick ascent with a perfect Yank accent and a nice note of observant reserve.

The setting could hardly be made to look less than glorious, and production standards are up to what one expects from a Scott picture. All the same, lensing is not as resplendent as it might have been; numerous shots sharing bright and dark areas aren't well balanced, and faces are sometimes underlit. The soundtrack, fleshed out with an eclectic array of tunes, is lively.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Let's hope all the critic's make short work of Russell's and Ridley's newest. I'm fed up with both of them.

A Good Year

By Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter


TORONTO -- "A Good Year" marks an experimental venture by director Ridley Scott and star Russell Crowe into romantic comedy with slapstick touches. It's always commendable for talented artists to flex different muscles and try new things. But from the looks of this movie, comedy is the forte of neither man. You sense in every frame the strain to be lighthearted. Consequently, "A Good Year" is at times downright clumsy. You know what the filmmakers are trying to achieve and see the labor going into the attempt, but for them to fall so short is unsettling.

The duo's enviable track record and the pleasant thought of spending two hours in the south of France with a movie derived from a novel by popular travel memoirist Peter Mayle will entice many to "A Good Year." But like a sip of the vinegary wine made on the Provencal estate around which the movie revolves, the bitter aftertaste will lead to poor word of mouth.

The movie, written by Marc Klein ("Serendipity"), telegraphs every punch. A prologue catches the movie's British hero, Max Skinner, as a young boy (Freddie Highmore), learning about life and wine on the French estate of his Uncle Henry (Albert Finney). Despite the idyllic and harmonious surroundings though, young Max is not above cheating his uncle at chess.

Flash forward many years to catch Mad Max -- this is Crowe now --the ruthless London stock market trader in action. He pushes every legal envelop to make millions, sees beautiful women as trophies, takes pride in his callousness and refuses to go on holiday for fear an even more ruthless trader will steal his job.

When news arrives that his uncle has died and the chateauand its vineyards are now his, you just know a few days in the French sun will reacquaint him with his childhood values and cure him of his insensitivity. You expect a French girl to win his heart. Oh, there she is, cafe owner Fanny Chenal (Marion Cotillared)! A rustic couple -- the chateau's longtime vigneron Francis Duflot (Didier Bourdon) and his vivacious wife Ludivine (Isabelle Candelier) -- will certainly help him rediscover his soul. And no one hires Finney to play one scene so you anticipate that Uncle Henry will appear in flashbacks to remind Max of what he has lost.

London sequences are shot and edited in a jumpy, frantic manner to mirror Max's go-go-go lifestyle. Yet when Max returns to France, Scott doesn't let the movie relax and absorb the scenery. Instead Max's rental car spins in circles looking for directions, a dog nips at his heels, cell phones ring constantly, a tennis match turns into war and Max renovates the chateau in one frenzied weekend. Even the picturesque hill village of Menerbes, which in reality is tranquil even at the height of the tourist season, is jammed with noisy extras by Scott to make it look like a circus.

The romance between Max and Fanny feels forced. Nothing about these two makes them compatible. The real problem though is characters throughout the movie lack dimension. If Max has loved only one person his whole life, why has he not spoken to his uncle in years? And why did he lose his values? If heartbreak has caused Fanny to never trust a man again, then why does she fall in love with Max after one dinner?

Speaking of "why," why does Francis deliberately make bad chateau wine while using grapes from a secret plot to make a super-expensive cult wine? Doesn't that mean he was cheating Uncle Henry? Why is his wife always being seductive around Max?

When Christie (Australian Abbie Cornish), a girl from California's Napa Valley, turns up days after Henry's death and claims to be his illegitimate daughter, are you really supposed to believe she has no interest in any inheritance? And how can Max on a Sunday night in Provence telephone his office in London, where it is daytime and the stock market is open?

Then there's the film's sense of humor or lack thereof. Gags about a dog peeing on legs and American tourists complaining menus are written in French are too tired for words. An endless slapstick sequence of Crowe struggling to extricate himself from a deep though empty swimming pool is embarrassingly bad.

Crowe never looks comfortable. Just as his facial stubble changes from scene to scene, his approach to Max changes from moment to moment. The character isn't so much contradictory or complex; he's simply confusing. Crowe never gets a handle on him.

For that matter, little subtlety creeps into the acting, which is understandable given that these roles are more caricature than character. One exception is Archie Panjabi, who as Max's assistant lets slight reproaches seep into exchanges with her boss without him seeming to notice.
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