Director Jacobs' absurdist tale of a rich heiress whose fortune has run out so she runs off to Paris with her grown son is uneven and sometimes confounding. If it wasn't for Pfeiffer I'd likely have given up on it somewhere in the middle. But she brings such a defiantly pathetic irresistibility to her part that I couldn't stop watching her. She is so unlikeable I couldn't help but feel for her train wreck of a character, a lonely lost soul who has lost her reason.
The film is occasionally brilliant, with little moments that Jacobs films gorgeously. But then there are long stretches where it feels more pedestrian. But the film's structure often feels like it is oscillating as well. The whimsical score over darkly humorous moments that are so often tinged with a hint of sadness. All of it feels slightly off, but maybe intentionally, but not necessarily successfully.
The film's ending is a mixed bag. I wasn't sure I felt the film earned it and as I watched it play out, an ending you anticipate from early on, I felt less than I probably should have. Again Pfeiffer makes it work but the film doesn't give her enough to really deliver what an ending like this should feel like. So overall, for me, this was all about seeing Pfeiffer do some amazing work, an actor we don't get enough of these days.
French Exit
Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Lucas Hedges, Valerie Mahaffey, Susan Coyne, Imogen Poots, Danielle Macdonald, Tracey Letts
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Writer: Patrick deWitt
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