Being a huge fan of Conte d'ete ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115940/ ) I was expecting to be wowed by another French beach romance with a lot of honesty, realism, and humor. Same director, same actress- what could go wrong? Unfortunately, Pauline a la plange is a huge disappointment. It's very slow and talkative which would be fine if the dialog conveyed insights into the characters, was meaningful, or original. But it comes across as a typical soap opera alternating between irrelevant pillow talk and jealous accusations. The only thing that saves this movie from being a complete disaster is a small amount of character development or at least "character change" with regards to Pauline. The source material is standard fare (sexual awakening during a beach vacation) but it could have been a decent film nevertheless if any of the characters were sufficiently interesting. Unfortunately that's not the case. Event though there are other shortcomings with Rohmer's season cycle, most of his later films are definitely leagues above this one.
Review of Pauline at the Beach
