LA PETITE LILI
Directed by: Claude Miller.
Produced by: Christine Gozlan.
Written by: Julien Boivent & Claude Miller.
Director of Photography: Gérard de Battista.
Edited by: Véronique Lange.
Music by: Claude la Haye.
Released by: First Run Features.
Language: French with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France. 104 min. Not Rated.
With: Nicole Garcia, Bernard Giraudeau, Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu, Robinson Stévenin & Jean-Pierre Marielle.

A young couple makes love by a lake. An old man slumbering alone in a field is awoken by a bleating cow. But volatile undercurrents inevitably rise to the surface during this languid summer holiday. Julien (Robinson Stévenin), son of famous actress Mado (Nicole Garcia), debuts his abstract short film to friends and family amidst tepid acclaim. This sets the judgmental and defensive Julien on a tirade against his mother's director/boyfriend, the debonair Brice (Bernard Giraudeau), even though he liked the film. Not helping matters is his mother's referring to his film as a "provincial Bergman rip-off." The star of his art film is Lili (Ludivine Sagnier), a coy and determined aspiring actress who has been spending the summer with Julien. Seeing that she is drawn to the more successful older man, Julien pouts, and his drawn out confrontations with Lili, in which she stares back blankly at him, almost resemble the pretentious piece that has drawn his mother's ire. Romantic entanglements ensue both upstairs and downstairs at the chateau, but loquacious philosophical discussions on film theory and love (with one character even quoting Proust) turn this summer stay into a stupor. Fortunately, director Claude Miller restores circulation in the film's last act, set five years later, when Lili no longer seduces but demands, as she is now the toast of the French film world.

Miller has reshaped the story of playwright Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, giving it a refreshing touch of joie de vivre while remaining faithful to the work's spirit. The play is only a starting point. Gone is Chekhov's morose ending, with moving reconciliations taking its place. Garcia is certainly Chekhovian, both slyly funny in her condescension and movingly sad as she knows full well she is losing Brice to the younger Lili. But though Sagnier is as much the sex kitten she was in Swimming Pool, her low-key presence here would hardly create the tempest that is at the center of the film. Kent Turner
November 12, 2004