Les Amandiers, the second of the four French films in Competition, charmed the socks off the Grand Theatre Lumiere last night. From the first minute, the audience erupted in laughter until the end. But as the movie progressed, it gradually revealed that it doesn’t quite have the character or thematic depth to substantiate its charms.
Based on the famous Théâtre des Amandiers run by French arts legend Patrice Chéreau in the 1980s, Les Amandiers is about a group of students in their early 20s who get accepted into Chéreau’s school and learn their craft there. It is a theatre-kids-hangout movie or an eccentric-theatre-director movie that we’ve seen many times. Vying to get into this exclusive conservatory, the theatre kids are over-the-top even by theatre kids’ standard, but director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi successfully makes their dreams, ambitions, and obnoxiousness heart-warming and inspirational.
But however fun the kids may be to hang out with, it comes a time for them to gain depth. Unfortunately, the movie actually doubles down on their archetypes. There’s the rich angelic white girl audience surrogate who’s also the long-suffering girlfriend to the “I’m Marlon Brando and I’m so serious” heroin addict, the quirky best friend who has no personality or arc beyond being the best friend, the gay teacher who inappropriately touches students, etc. It begins to play more and more like a French Rent, and because every character solidifies as an archetype and a mere piece to complete the film’s puzzle, the movie loses whatever authenticity it may have. Its trajectory is too straightforward, as it never dares to really challenge the characters. It never sells or grounds the story with any real stakes – of course the theatre kids are going to flop on the floor and scream “I’ll die!” if they don’t get into the school, but what do they really have to lose?
It’s clear the French film industry turned up for this film. Isabelle Adjani and Isabelle Huppert appeared at the red carpet, the latter of which didn’t even show up for EO, her own movie in Competition. The mostly French audience cheered (and booed!) for every production company logo that appeared at the start. And one can see why. This movie is totally, 100% industry or arts folks’ bait. It lightly mocks the ridiculous people in this field with their grandiloquent philosophies, while gently patting them on their backs and validating them. However, the haphazard ending quite abruptly becomes the pretentiousness the film’s making fun of. The movie doesn’t actually seem to be interested in asking any questions about acting, theatricality, and artifice. It incorporates Chekhov but only as window dressing. Louis Garrel’s Patrice Chéreau gives out some terrible directing instructions, despite supposedly being a directing god.
This movie doesn’t match the energy of something like All That Jazz, but it probably isn’t trying to. Instead, it takes on the usual French cinema mode of being laissez-faire and features “classy” piano music like Liszt’s “La campanella” throughout. Save for a key scene or two, Bruni Tedeschi’s camera is largely unobtrusive. There is a slightly ugly but arguably necessary filter to evoke the ’80s. But perhaps because of the lack of a budget, not enough is done to capture the era, and throwing on AIDS in the second half of the film is not going to help. Instead, the French prestige aesthetic and writing means this movie does not capture the desperation and hopelessness of the AIDS era.
Les Amandiers is industry catnip and seems likely to win a string of Césars next year, but non-French or non-artsy audiences will probably find this hard to care about.