Beautiful Mother

Lesbians, adultery, Catherine Deneuve. It may sound saucy and promising, but this plodding, erratic film falls limp. Starting at his own wedding, slimy Antoine (Vincent Lindon) leers over his delicious free-spirited mother-in-law, Léa (Catherine Deneuve). Momma does best, and her daughter Séverine (Mathilde Seigner) gets dumped. Director Gabriel Aghion tries to toy with sexual taboo: lawyer Séverine services her clients for a little extra, Dad marries his prostitute. Sprinkled throughout are gratuitous lesbian jokes from Léa's dykey mother, Nicou (Line Renaud), and some unexplained musical numbers in a bathroom. It seems the film aims to be a funny farce -- or at least provocative. But it's only the lovely Deneuve's spirited performance that saves it from being a total bomb. A cutesy ending employs the kids from the film's many unlikely pairings to break down the complicated relationships and explain them away as silly. Throughout, Aghion favors fast, unexplained cuts as a way to portray the plot as wild or madcap. The result is simply mad crap.

-- Nina Willdorf