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LE GRAND ROLE
Directed by: Steve Suissa.
Written by: Daniel Cohen, Daniel Goldenberg, Steve Suissa & Sophie Tepper, based on the novel by Goldenberg.
Director of Photography: Guillaume Schiffman.
Edited by: Monica Coleman.
Music by: David Marouani.
Released by: First Run Features.
Language: English & French with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France. 89 min. Not Rated.
With: Stéphane Freiss, Bérénice Bejo & Peter Coyote.

"Careful, those potatoes have pork in them," a big shot French director dining at a Parisian café mockingly says to Maurice Kurtz (Stéphane Freiss), a young Jewish actor looking for his big break. From the film's opening scene, one might expect director Steve Suissa to lead viewers through the daily struggles of a young Jewish couple battling prejudice in modern France. While Suissa hints at such tensions, the heart of his film is a touching and powerful love story.

Maurice spends his days trolling the streets of Paris with his four male buddies - also out-of-work actors. Their days are filled with boyish banter and horseplay; the five actors are friends in real life as well. Maurice's career seems to get a jump start when American director Rudolph Grichenberg (Peter Coyote) comes to town to shoot a film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice in Yiddish. After a series of grueling auditions, Grichenberg offers Maurice the film's starring role. That same day, his wife Perla (Bérénice Bejo) finally reveals to him a secret - she has a fatal form of cancer. Soon after, Grichenberg withdraws his offer when the Hollywood star he really wanted is suddenly available. But Maurice can't tell Perla the truth; his success gives her too much joy. What follows is an elaborate ploy by Maurice, his friends, and Perla's family to make her believe her husband is, in fact, the star he's always wanted to be.

Some questions in the film are left unanswered. Why would a famous American director come to France to revive Yiddish theater? Suissa also hints at a subplot dealing with French anti-Semitism. A group of elderly Yiddish-speaking Jews auditioning for the film are outraged when an assistant continues to refer to them as "the Jews," and in another scene, Maurice's agent suggests he attend his audition "dressed as a Jew." Such comments are thrown in without resolution. But with the film's original story line and powerful performances by Stéphane Freiss and Bérénice Bejo, these holes are easily overlooked. Deborah Lynn Blumberg
May 6, 2005