*½/****
starring Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen, Yvan Attal
written and directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau
by Bill Chambers "And I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll boorrre the hell out of you." Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Bon Voyage labours harder than any film in recent memory to entertain, but the result is so draining I don't remember grooving with it once. In the opening scene, the latest vehicle for champagne starlet Viviane Denverts (Isabelle Adjani, who at 48 should be too old to play an ingénue, but looks at least half her age–it's quite miraculous, really) leaves rapt the attendees of a French movie premiere. Scene two, the film's frisky producer pays Viviane a late-night booty call, and she shoots dead the would-be rapist. Scene three, Viviane's neighbour Frédéric (Grégori Derangère), an aspiring novelist, answers her cry for help, agreeing to dispose of the body. Frédéric is pulled over in scene four and convicted for having a corpse in his trunk in five. WWII reaches France in six; Frédéric escapes from prison in seven, boards a train in eight, and stows away with physicists–one of whom (the always-enchanting Virginie Ledoyen) finds him alluring–transporting a scarce supply of heavy water in nine. Within twenty minutes, Bon Voyage has dipped a toe in the waters of five or six distinct genres–never to cohere, alas. The film's most dependable tone is one of farce, but Rappeneau's problem is that he wants to make an epic farce (and in the process asks a stage tradition to bear too much cinematic weight) along the lines of Spielberg's 1941, replete with Dolbyized door-slamming. I know, because every one of them woke me up. Programme: Viacom Galas
