Based on actual events, a Parisian art student, Lili, falls for a handsome Moroccan criminal and impulsively follows him into hiding after a bungled bank robbery. She joins him on the run in a dizzying cross-continent escape through Spain, Morocco and Greece, but a sudden betrayal leaves her stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Shot in wide-screen, low-grain black and white, this sleek suspense narrative quietly unpacks the delusions and emotional hunger of its upper-class heroine.
If you're not careful, A Tout De Suite--Benoit Jacquot's ode to the French New Wave, infused with his love of American crime classics 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'Badlands'--will fool you.
Crazy things certainly happen to Lili, but Le Besco drifts through most of the proceedings as though she were following a checklist: long face (done), three-way with lithe Athenians (yup), the occasional suggestion of zombietude (mission accomplished).
The film's retro appeal includes black-and-white cinematography and a Truffaut-esque fascination for parallels between the characters' wild flight and filmmaking itself as a wide-eyed, open-ended experience.
Benoit Jacquot's drama creates a sense of dislocation with its impossible-to- predict-what-will- happen-next plot, jumpy black-and-white cinematography, elusive characters and casual approach to the time in which it's set.
Starts out and mostly finishes as a typical French disaffectation piece - a bored young woman with a well-off family runs away to find herself - but creates an interesting subversion by making her self-discovery really suck. Running away with her fugitive boyfriend initially seems like it'll be a grand adventure, but
things go very quickly sour and the experience presents very few positive aspects for our poor nameless heroine. The narrative is pretty interesting, but its delivery feels stilted and ineffective. There's only so many times characters can refuse to introduce themselves or pause for half-minutes at a time before you realize the movie is mostly hot air. Things in Right Now feel organic in that "life imitates art" way, and the little glimpses we get at the main character before her escape indicate that she's a dissatisfied romantic who WOULD follow some sparkly bit of false hope out of a safe existence; unfortunately, the careful crafting of the situation is betrayed by the movie's peculiar interactions. Isild Le Besco is a different leading lady, peculiar-looking and not super expressive. I constantly felt that she wasn't quite right as I watched the movie, and perhaps it was the movie's intention that it never really let me into how she was feeling or what she was thinking, but I would have preferred a slightly less obtuse actress. Her lack of emotional signposting makes some of the sexual scenes especially bizarre.Pretty interesting, well worth the time, but you're better off watching Breathless.
With "A Tout de Suite," writer-director Benoit Jacquot has made another rumination about the reverbations of women's actions.("Sade" being an exception to this rule.) In other words, if we have freedom, than we must accept the consequences of our actions. Whether this is sexist depends on the circumstances of the
specific movie.("Seventh Heaven" did give me cause for concern.) Here, it is 1975 and a 19-year old talented but unenthusiastic art student(Isild Le Besco), who lives at home with her father and sister, a university student, gets involved with bank robbers after becoming smitten with one of them(Ouassini Embarek). Even knowing who they are, she still decides to leave home with them. It is clear that she is naive about the world around her but not about sex. "A Tout de Suite" is shot in black and white(which I am such a sucker for). The movie emulates the French New Wave with its jump cuts and loose story structure. Some stock footage is added to make it look more like 1975.
No quotes approved yet for À tout de suite (Right Now). Logged in users can submit quotes.
Submit a Quote from 'À tout de suite (Right Now)'
A quote can be a single line from one character or a memorable dialog between several characters. Please make your quotes accurate. Quotes will be submitted for approval by the RT staff.
Example:
Luke: Alright. I'll give it a try. Yoda: No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
Top Critic
