AND NOW LADIES & GENTLEMEN
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten Grade: A- Paramount Classics Directed by: Claude Lelouch Written by: Claude Lelouch Cast: Jeremy Irons, Patricia Kaas, Yvan Attal, Thierry L'Hermitte, Claudia Cardinale Screened at: Sweetland, NYC, 6/25/03
An American audience fixated exclusively on Hollywood has already bought a meet cute such as this: a rich politician meets a hotel maid and breaks with convention by courting a woman well below his class. The trouble with "Maid in Manhattan" is that while Ralph Fiennes in the role of a man running for a high U.S. office is cultured enough, his character is flat. For all we know he's a blowhard with no interests aside from his political career and his hots for J.Lo in maid's attire. Forward now to Claude Lelouch, the master of civilized and heady romantic rendezvous. His skill with sophisticated humor may not be found in the real world, but then the people who popular his screen are larger than life. "And Now Ladies & Gentlemen" is the loving work of the director whose "A Man and a Woman" dazzled its audience with the growing affection of Anouk Aimee for Jean-Louis Trintignant, a movie that could have come form a perfume ad in a glossy magazine but whose story about a young widow and widower who fall in love became one of the 1960s most popular love stories. With "And Now Ladies & Gentleman," Lelouch is at his most adventurous, setting up a story of two people who appear superficially to be suave, strong and independent but whose vulnerabilities become achingly apparent during their courtship.
The tale, quirky as its title, mixes dreams with reality. Valentin Valentin (Jeremy Irons) meets Jane Lester (Patricia Kaas)at night in a medina in Fez, Morocco after Lester, a chanteuse, had given yet another rendition of popular French songs to a blase, uninterested crowd of the rich and famous in the city's swankiest hotel. Valentin, arriving in a dark alley just as Jane Lester is being set up for a mugging, rescues her from a couple of shady characters. While from the outside we see a glamorous night-club singer's encounter with an adventurer who is in the midst of traveling the world alone on his 60-foot yacht, beneath the surface is a woman who is retreating from her fruitless love for a trumpet player, who is subjected to periodic blackouts that threaten her career, and who has run into a man who is afflicted with a similar physical illness. Both seek help from a Moroccan doctor, Lamy (Jean-Marie Bigard in a double role as a chemist and as his twin doing brain surgery in a hospital). Though each takes refuge from a dismal romance she from a lost love and he from a wife of whom he is tired their courtship is rocky at first, developing credibly into full- blown amour.
"And Now Ladies & Gentlemen" has atmosphere to die for, not only from the original score composed by the great Michel Legrand ("The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," "The Thomas Crown Affair," The Young Girls of Rochefort"). Lelouch, an exceptional technician, makes good use of Pierre-William Glenn's lensing to capture the mysticism of Morocco, principally the exotic city of Fez where donkeys share the cobblestone streets with residents, tourists and sellers of spice; and the flowing sands leading to the sacred town of Moulay-Yacoub in which lies the tomb of Lalla Chafia, now claimed to heal sick people who walk across twenty kilometres of desert to set foot there.
"And Now Ladies & Gentlemen" may concentrate on the growing love of Valentin for Jane but Lelouch, allowing his performers considerable improvisation, elicits the comic talents of Jeremy Irons. As Valentin, Irons is a jewel thief who occasionally shows a pistol but who achieves his booty by charming the managers of the first-class stores so much that they're almost happy to be taken for a ride. Lelouch, now sixty- five years of age and perhaps thinking of wrapping up his career, pays homage to past works and to his performers' previous efforts as well. As my online colleague Walter Chaw points out in his 'zine Film Freak Central, the appearance of twin doctors recalls Jeremy Irons' turn in "Dead Ringers," a disguise as an old man his performance in "Reversal of Fortune," and in one scene at an art action uses the name "Mr. Hitchcock," whom cinephiles will recognize from "North by Northwest." Patricia Kaas, a popular French singer, makes a stunning debut as the younger woman who falls for Valentin, Thierry Lhermitte as Thierry, the builder of yachts who makes a play for Valentin's wife while the latter is circumnavigating the globe, and the always reliable Jeremy Irons, brooding leading man of British and international films like "The French Lietenant's Woman" and "Reversal of Fortune," known for selecting his roles carefully, has made his usual fine choice with this one.
As a romance with considerable comic and tragic touches, the story of a jewel thief turned sailor blows most Hollywood love stories out of the water.
Rated PG-13. 126 minutes. (C) 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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