French Exit: Film Review

Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Lucas Hedges, a black cat, Imogen Poots, Danielle Macdonald

Director: Azazel Jacobs

As ever a sad and solemn movie as you will see, French Exit sees Michelle Pfeiffer's broke socialite Frances Price take a torch to her New York world and drag her son with it.

When Frances is told her money is running out, and she has no choice but to sell everything, she decides to follow a whim from years ago and take an old friend up on a deal to borrow a French apartment. Whisking her old-before-his-time son Malcolm (Hedges, a muted yet tacitly bland turn) along on her departure, the pair relocate and try and get on with life.

But for Frances, it's the end of a final chapter, ("It's the coda" she magnificently declares at one point); whereas for Malcolm, it's about finding his way from his meandering life and into a new one. However, despite the duo not necessarily wanting it to, the flat soon becomes a refuge for others...

French Exit is a film where nothing much massively happens.

However, in its low key farce and general insouciance, Pfeiffer rises to the top, as a not particularly nice individual who's reticent to let her facade drop. In truth, it's easy to play nasty, but Pfeiffer imbues Frances with a flicker of something else, a touch of humanity in the awfulness that makes her such a compelling playmate.

Hedges is relatively blank throughout, giving his Malcolm a sort of listless approach to life that sparks well with Pfeiffer's cool and seemingly destructive mother. 

The film does become a little overstuffed with oddballs as it plays out, and while the laughs are there, there's an air of melancholy running deeply in this movie's veins - a sort of "where do the broken-hearted and lost souls go" approach that will either drive you nuts or see you claim this movie will become beloved.

In truth, it's somewhere inbetween.

As the pudding starts to feel over-egged with hollow characters, you come to realise how much more deeply you care about Frances and Malcolm, even if you don't massively like them. The ambivalence within French Exit is also, conversely, its strength.

As the ghastly and gauche Frances obviously softens as the story demands it, Pfeiffer lets down enough of her guard to show that under the fur coat armour and the seemingly-nasty quips, there is someone worth caring about - though she never slips in anti-hero antics or OTT territory.

French Exit is a curio, admittedly, but give it time to work its charms and its rhythms will wash over you - and you'll appreciate how vital Pfeiffer is to proceedings.