Director Oudney's great skill is to play a touch on national stereotypes (that's comedy for you) before delving into the heart of her characters.
Comment
05/20/09
French Film (2008)
56
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:16
Fresh:9
Rotten:7
Average Rating:5.3/10
Synopsis: Journalist Jed Winter (Hugh Bonneville) is preparing to interview the celebrated French auteur film-maker Thierry Grimandi (Eric Cantona), a self-appointed expert on the nature of love. Jed is... [More]
Starring: Eric Cantona, Anne-Marie Duff, Hugh Bonneville, Douglas Henshall
Director: Jackie Oudney
Reviews for French Film
1 - 16 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
The director, Jackie Oudney, gives Bonneville and Duff’s scenes a proper romcom glow, but Aschlin Ditta’s script resorts to a lot of faffing about to postpone the inevitable happy ending.
05/17/09
The film is clever, funny and emotionally truthful and the parodies of Grimandi's films are deadly accurate.
05/17/09
Not a good film by a long stretch, but there’s something so harmless about this debut directorial effort (from a script by Aschlin ‘Scenes of a Sexual Nature’ Ditta) that to pull it apart would be like savaging a child’s first attempt at storywriting.
05/15/09
Sacre bleu! C'est un perky British rom a la com avec un great self-mocking performance by Eric Cantona.
05/15/09
The writing — unfunny, repetitive — is barely sitcom standard; the lighting is brutal; the performances desperate.
05/15/09
Top CriticThe result, however, is uneven: lurching from little-Englander spoofery to heartfelt emotionalising and back again - often in the same scene.
05/15/09
Top CriticThis is a rich, beautifully written exploration of romantic self-delusion. The playing - particularly Bonneville - is assured and the dialogue constantly fires off cracking one-liners.
05/15/09
The actors give their all, but there's not enough here that's fresh. French Film is plodding and predictable - frightfully English, and not in a good way.
05/15/09
A relationships drama with almost nothing to say about relationships - except that they ain't easy - the only memorable thing about this is a supporting turn by former footballer Eric Cantona.
05/15/09
An engagingly lightweight romcom.
05/15/09
This is a British film which features Eric Cantona poking fun at pretentious Gallic movies, it turns out to be surprisingly amusing.
05/15/09
The treatment of French cinema is rather facile, and ultimately this is no more substantial than a half-decent television sitcom, or one of the slight, love-themed sketches in Scenes of a Sexual Nature, writer Aschlin Ditta’s previous credit.
05/15/09
Cantona provides a few bright moments in French Film, a damp squib of a romantic comedy with little in the way of wit, flair or sparkle.
05/15/09
Engaging, frequently amusing and surprisingly thoughtful British romcom, enlivened by strong performances from its four leads and a likeable comic turn from Cantona.
05/14/09
This romantic pastiche is rather uneven and corny, but is packed with characters who are thoroughly intriguing. We may not like them very much, but we recognise ourselves in there.
05/14/09
1 - 16 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
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