Review of French Kiss

Introduction

French Kiss is a romantic comedy. I thought I`d get that out of the way first. You see I`ve never been a fan of the rom-com. The genre seemed promising at first, what with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant producing wonderful pieces of fluff in the fifties. Then came the seemingly endless films of Doris Day and Rock Hudson (with an irascible old lady drunk in a lift somewhere), which deadened the nerve endings. Modern rom-coms are pretty much an identikit affair. If you think either Sandra Bullock or Hugh Grant, you pretty much know what you`re going to get. Heaven knows what will happen if the two of them ever star in a film together. Probably the end of life as we know it. Therefore I wasn`t expecting a lot from French Kiss when I first saw it. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least.

Meg Ryan plays the kooky teacher, Kate who is engaged to a doctor Charlie, played by Timothy Hutton. (Why kooky? We categorise everything in this country, stick it into neat little boxes so we feel safe in our neat, labelled world. Music gets divided into types, Britpop, Hip Hop, Teeny Bop. Actors are equally labelled. Arnie is the Austrian Oak, Hugh Grant is foppish, Jack Nicholson is manic and Meg Ryan is kooky. What`s up with that?) Trying again, Meg Ryan plays schoolteacher Kate, an interesting character who is instantly likeable but displaying little neuroses and character quirks that endear her to the audience and draw their attention. On the eve of her marriage to Charlie, they plan a trip to Paris, but her intense fear of flying forces her to stay behind. As she plans her life with Charlie she gets a phone call from him to tell her that he has met someone else and will marry her instead. Determined to keep her man, Kate boards the next plane to France and tries to conquer her phobia. She seems to be losing that battle when an ebullient Frenchman, Luc played by Kevin Kline takes the next seat. He engages her in conversation and by being alternatively obnoxious and charming but stereotypically rude, he distracts her until the plane is in the air. Luc is a disreputable petty criminal who is smuggling diamonds wrapped around a carefully tended grapevine. He seizes the opportunity to use Kate as an unwitting "mule" and drops the contraband into her baggage. In Paris, he offers to give her a lift to Charlie`s hotel but gets distracted by Jean-Paul, a police officer whose life Luc once saved, played by Jean Reno who keeps his eye on Luc and tries to keep him out of trouble. When he finally catches up to Kate at the hotel, her luggage and his precious contraband have been stolen. He recognizes the description of the thief and offers to help her get her luggage back (as well as his vine). After a madcap race through Paris, they corner the thief and get some of her possessions back. After realising that Luc was after the vine he had used her to smuggle, they argue and go their separate ways. Later Luc realises that while he has the vine, the diamonds are still in Kate`s handbag. Catching up with her he promises to help her get Charlie back and guide her through France is search of him, hoping he can find the diamonds again.

Video

The film is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 format. The colours are resplendent and gorgeous. Filmed in France, every other scene has a landmark or beautiful scenery in the background. In fact there`s a running gag about the Eiffel Tower. Paris is always good value for money as a film location and it doesn`t disappoint here. There are occasional specks of grain in a few scenes, but nothing too distracting. A by the books transfer.

Audio

You can take your pick from English, French, German and Spanish DD 2.0 surround tracks. I of course picked English. There`s no crash bang wallop in this film so a surround track is sufficient as the dialogue is always audible. The music is suitably Gallic in tone and compliments the film well.

Features

Extras are limited to two trailers. But there are subtitles in 14 languages, plus two hard of hearing. As a full price release, this is sorely lacking, but as I picked it up in the January sales for a tenner, I`m not going to complain. I would have liked some more extras though, sniff…

Conclusion

Meg Ryan is simply captivating as Kate, she has natural screen presence and her charisma elevates any film she`s in. Coupled with a good script as in French Kiss, you can`t go wrong. Being a Hollywood film, the first requirement is a recognisable face in a leading man. Here it`s Kevin Kline. It would have been interesting if a French actor had played Luc but American audiences must be catered for and no doubt the spectre of Green Card loomed. That said, Kline`s performance is excellent. My French isn`t very good (Je voudrais une biere s`il vous plait. Important phrase) GCSE Level at best, so I can`t comment on his grasp of the language except to say that it sounded authentic. His French accent may have drifted on occasion but you really have to be paying attention to notice. More importantly, he had the look and the attitude down pat. He`s good enough for an English speaking audience. Most importantly for a film of this type, chemistry just bubbles between the two leads and you are captivated by most of the film. Added to the mix is Jean Reno as the amiable policeman. Reno elevates any production he appears in and just oozes style and charisma.

An excellent film for the most part. I say for the most part because I found that the last act didn`t seem to gel with the rest of the film. The Charlie storyline is a necessary contrivance to get Kate over to France and to meet Luc, hence setting up the clash of personalities, unusual situations expected in a rom-com. Once there, great, we get the abrasive interactions the culture clash the whole falling in love thing. This is most of the film and very entertaining. Then as if someone realised that we have to resolve this thing and sort out who loves who, the film completely changes direction and turns into a bed-hopping farce as Kate and Charlie try to get back together and Kate realises that she loves Luc, and Luc tries to seduce Charlie`s girlfriend and realises he loves Kate. It`s as if the filmmakers couldn`t think of anything better to conclude the film. When the obligatory happy ending does arrive it appears hopelessly contrived. With all due respect to Timothy Hutton, his character is out of place in this film and should have exited with the phone call. Instead, far more should have been made, of Luc`s interaction with Jean-Paul and a better situation with the policeman could have ensued. As it is, Jean Reno is criminally under-used in this film. There is a problem also with the subtitles. There are none recorded on the film for the French dialogue. You have to keep the English subtitles on to understand what they are saying, but I recall this problem when the film was broadcast on TV. Other DVDs manage to have the subs flash up for foreign dialogue and MGM should have done the same here. So there we have it, 10% crud and 90% diamond averages out to a good, entertaining film.

Watch out! There`s a Bollywood Hindi rip-off out there that has the same plot and dialogue but with a smuggled mango plant and with added songs and costume changes to fill the extra hour and half. Fortunately I`ve blanked the name from my memory.