Academy Award-winner Jean Dujardin, devoid of his slick handsomeness seen in “The Artist,” is Ludo, a player stumbling drunk through a nightclub, hair thinning, making out with his friend’s girl. He hops onto his motorbike and rides through the Parisian streets as the sun rises, the camera following him for so long we are lulled by his hungover ride.
And then a truck blindsides him.
So starts “Little White Lies” (Les petits mouchoirs), a twist on the 1980s American film “The Big Chill,” and it’s an introduction that foreshadows the movie’s rhythm. Long lulls, sprinkled with emotional whammies that both wake you up and make you feel a little bit manipulated. The result is a sometimes touching, more often frustrating, French film that teeters between comedy and drama and fails to reach its potential.
Following Ludo’s motorbike crash, we meet his gang of friends. Fellow Academy Award-winner Marion Cotillard plays Marie, the group’s bohemian, who enjoys smoking pot, sleeping around and traveling to the Amazon. She’s joined by Eric (Gilles Lellouche), a budding actor and Ludo’s hard partier-in-crime, lovesick Antoine (Laurent Lafitte) and best friends Max (François Cluzet) and Vincent (Benoît Magimel).
The friends, which include Max and Vincent’s wives, are shaken at seeing Ludo banged up in the hospital. Yet they all decide to continue with their annual vacation to Max’s summer beach house anyway. Before they even make it, Vincent tells Max he’s attracted to him, sweetly confessing, “I love your hands.”
The secret is just one of the many little white lies that float throughout this close group of friends. Amidst the beautiful shots director Guillaume Canet captures of the south of France, filled with white sand and topaz blue, the real drama lies in the vacation home, where the director’s intimate camerawork captures the unraveling lives and friendships.
The film moves too slowly, as if on its own vacation. Though we effectively see Max and Vincent’s relationship fall apart as Max becomes more and more uncomfortable with his friend’s secret, Canet gives us little insight into many of the other relationships in the movie. With no background on what brought this group of people together in the first place, it’s easy to sometimes wonder why they’re still friends.
This continues to be the major problem with “Little White Lies,” as we are barred from hearing and seeing multiple important conversations, which are often muted by an out-of-place 1960s American rock and roll soundtrack.
In one scene, Vincent’s wife Isabelle, played in quiet pain by Pascale Arbillot, feels left out and leaves her husband and Marie to revel in their inside jokes. It’s an isolation shared by the audience, reminiscent of the boys club that made “Ocean’s Twelve” only fun for the guys who were actually in it.
The movie finally picks up more than halfway through its almost two-and-a-half-hour run. Marie shares one of the most touching conversations with Ludo, who is all too often forgotten in the film. Lellouche is another standout, cracking with intensity and desperation as his character finally reaches an emotional turning point.
Though the majority of the film strives to be a comedy, with funny conversations about the friends’ sex lives and a great scene with a wannabe porn star, it takes a nosedive at the very end in terms of tone. The change easily brings in the strongest and most beautiful performances of the entire film, and yet it’s hard not to feel a little bit manipulated when you find yourself crying instead of laughing.
““ Anneta Konstantinides
Email Konstantinides at akonstantinides@media.ucla.edu .