Marius and Jeannette (1997)

In a small port outside of Marseilles, an animated circle of friends and neighbors join to share in the funny, colorful and off-beat love story of Marius and Jeannette.

The vivacious, loud-mouthed Jeannette first meets Marius when he catches her trying to steal paint from the grounds of the cement factory he was hired to guard. Although it’s a precarious beginning, the two quickly turn their initial attraction into a budding romance. However, just as their relationship begins to flourish, the warm-hearted Marius retreats with no explanation. Troubled with Marius’ mysterious withdrawal, Jeannette’s spirited neighbors decide to intervene with hopes of helping the two unlikely lovers save their romance. This quirky romantic comedy is a lyrical and mature chronicle about listening to the music of the heart.

Love at the bottom end."

Ariane Ascaride, the star of this film, is a little whippet of a woman and no beauty, but she carries the film triumphantly. and she does it by sheer force of personality, her lovely smile. and delightful facial expressions. Her husband, Robert Guediguian, the director and writer of this film, has again made a warm, inspiring romantic comedy about people at the lower end of the social scale. This is something Hollywood seems rarely able to do; all the people in their romantic comedies must usually be rich, frequent expensive restaurants, have large cars and live in expensively furnished spacious apartments. But who wants money when, as this film demonstrates, you can be so happy without it?

Three ordinary women, none of them glamourous, all of them attractive, live cheek by jowl in a sort of tenement courtyard with two male friends. It's nice to see them all sitting around together in the warm evenings, surrounded by flowers and pot-plants, chatting, confiding in each other as friends do, and sharing a joke.

Jeanette lives with her young son and teenage daughter from two husbands - one left her and the other was killed - and she has not had sex or a man in her life for eight long years. Marius is a security guard on a demolition site and finds Jeanette about to steal two large cans of paint with which to decorate her house. He gives her a hard time; but she gives as good as she gets, calls him a fascist and they part as enemies. Later that day, however, a knock comes at her door and she finds him standing their with her two cans of paint. This friendly gesture is enough to stimulate in her romantic fantasies and as she watches him limp away down the alley we are shown her vision of herself running towards him on the beach to be lovingly clasped in his arms. Her face in close-up as leaning against the door post she has this vision is beatific. How could you not love such as woman?

He meets her next standing on the edge of a high building, but she quickly explains that this is the spot she used to stand in when at the age of nine she came to visit her father who was crushed to death at the age of 37. He then challenges her to a race with the proviso that if he wins she must allow him to decorate her house. His limp suddenly disappears and he wins easily.

The ending too is excellent, though it is sad to be told by the voice over that they all end up in the local cemetery. That was not something I wanted to be reminded of even if it does give a certain poignancy to the film's ending December 8, 2002

FABULOUS

A truly mature romantic comedy with none of the contrived Hollywood style sentimentality or phoney gravitas of working class life. The small suburb of Marseilles community are erudite and optimistic in a down to earth way. Though they are not wealthy their environment is somewhat picturesque and the close knit commarderie is totally enviable in our age of alienated modernity. Both Marius and Jeannette are "cautious returners" to the path of romantic involment. They have both known tragedy but in quite different ways. From the moment they appear on the screen you are willing the pair to succeed. Will it happen? You just have to buy the film to find out ! January 13, 2001

Family Entertainment from France

This is a funny, heartwarming, quirky and sometimes hilarious film about two French blue collar and communist workers falling in love in a lower middle class section of Marseilles. The movie is a character study of some truly eccentric characters. There isn't much action, but there is constant humor and marvelling at such a fine script. You might say that it is Barry Levinson directing a film in France instead of Baltimore. January 10, 2000

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