Erich Emmanuel Schmitt is best known for adapting other people's work for both stage and screen rather than for Original Screenplays so an Original for his directorial debut is something of a rarity. As it happens I saw one of his most recent adaptations on the Paris stage when he took Noel Cowards 'Private Lives' and 'adapted' it to within an inch of its life so much so that what Coward wrote as a duet plus two thankless supporting roles emerged at the pen of Schmitt as a full-blown quartet. Armed with this information I had mixed feelings about Odette toulemonde even though he had obviously hedged his bets bu casting Catherine Frot in the lead. When she puts her mind to it no one can do Adorable like Frot (see Un Air de famille or Les Soeurs fachees) just as when she puts her mind to it no one can do Evil like Frot (see Vipere au poing) in short she's one of the best in the business: were she to read this fulsome praise she may have trouble keeping her feet on the ground which is precisely her problem as Odette; she is prone to levitating at odd moments from sheer joie de vivre though it may help if, as she does, you know a guy who resembles Jesus Christ, thinks nothing of walking on water and when last seen was walking up a hill carrying on his shoulders a large block of wood. A mother with teenage children but no husband Odette is ripe for romance and finds it via best selling novelist Albert Dupontel, as unhappy in this branch of the Arts as he was when he played a concert pianist for Daniel Thompson in Fauteuils d'orchestre. With actors like Frot and Dupontel - and Frot lip-synching Josephine Baker for good measure - you have to work at it to turn out something from the Kennel Club and Schmitt pulls off a hugely entertaining debut.
Review of Odette Toulemonde
