The thing is, the premise sounds like the set-up for a comedy. Once we begin watching, though, we're greeted with substantial fatphobia, homophobia, ableism, and misogyny, domestic violence, bullying, and discussion of self-harm and suicide. That's all within the first fifteen minutes; in the very next scene there's racism, imperialist attitudes, cruelty for its own sake, and sexual assault. All these facets will continue to be major, dominant factors, with more to come, and more extreme examples of all. Suffice to say that this is not a comedy, and as a drama it's less than appealing right from the start. I'm a big fan of Vincent Cassel, and I'm a redhead, and for these reasons alone 'Notre jour viendra' sounded sights unseen something that I needed to check out for myself. To actually sit and watch, though - well, I found myself hoping it would get better. And I still kept hoping. And then still more. Oh well. Someone finds this meaningful, but it's not me. One can discern traces of what the end result could have been with better writing, yet that's about the best that can be said for it.
What's bizarre is that it feels like filmmaker Romain Gavras and co-writer Karim Boukercha did things backwards. The premise sounds fun; the root ideas of the scene writing seem primed for a comedy, or at least a comedy-drama. Once those root ideas are fleshed out, however, and dialogue and characters are added in, the picture instead becomes downbeat and downright questionable. We're given the story of one self-loathing outcast, harangued by unlikable people, who decides to claim agency by himself becoming incredibly unlikable and irresponsible, and more so when he partners with a man who (a) is at least as unlikable, and (b) has no actual reason to be associating with the outcast in the first place. It's like the buddy comedy and the road trip blended together with multiple flavors of drama, including crime first and foremost, and the result isn't enjoyable in any regard - just flummoxing. We're treated to a peculiar grab bag of everything, and it absolutely comes across as a movie that didn't know what it wanted to be. In fact, it seems rather clueless.
It's well made, I guess? The cast is fine, I guess? The music is probably the one reliably good thing here. There actually are many ideas here that could have been terrific if they were employed in a manner that made any sense. As it stands 'Notre jour viendra' is scattered and all but nonsensical, sometimes so much so that it rather seems as if it were actually intended as a surrealist art flick - but no, it's just perpetually confused. A would-be sex scene between Cassel's character and far younger women is the most normal, sensible, and cohesive that these ninety minutes get, but that's not saying much. It's evident that Gavras and Boukercha had a vision of some sort when they conjured their screenplay and brought it to life, but darned if I have any idea what it was supposed to be. I'm glad for those who somehow manage to get something out of this; I just don't know how they do it, for as far as I'm concerned the title manages to get worse as it goes on. Whatever it is you're hoping to get out of 'Notre jour viendra,' look elsewhere. This is simply not worth your time.
What's bizarre is that it feels like filmmaker Romain Gavras and co-writer Karim Boukercha did things backwards. The premise sounds fun; the root ideas of the scene writing seem primed for a comedy, or at least a comedy-drama. Once those root ideas are fleshed out, however, and dialogue and characters are added in, the picture instead becomes downbeat and downright questionable. We're given the story of one self-loathing outcast, harangued by unlikable people, who decides to claim agency by himself becoming incredibly unlikable and irresponsible, and more so when he partners with a man who (a) is at least as unlikable, and (b) has no actual reason to be associating with the outcast in the first place. It's like the buddy comedy and the road trip blended together with multiple flavors of drama, including crime first and foremost, and the result isn't enjoyable in any regard - just flummoxing. We're treated to a peculiar grab bag of everything, and it absolutely comes across as a movie that didn't know what it wanted to be. In fact, it seems rather clueless.
It's well made, I guess? The cast is fine, I guess? The music is probably the one reliably good thing here. There actually are many ideas here that could have been terrific if they were employed in a manner that made any sense. As it stands 'Notre jour viendra' is scattered and all but nonsensical, sometimes so much so that it rather seems as if it were actually intended as a surrealist art flick - but no, it's just perpetually confused. A would-be sex scene between Cassel's character and far younger women is the most normal, sensible, and cohesive that these ninety minutes get, but that's not saying much. It's evident that Gavras and Boukercha had a vision of some sort when they conjured their screenplay and brought it to life, but darned if I have any idea what it was supposed to be. I'm glad for those who somehow manage to get something out of this; I just don't know how they do it, for as far as I'm concerned the title manages to get worse as it goes on. Whatever it is you're hoping to get out of 'Notre jour viendra,' look elsewhere. This is simply not worth your time.