The sets and costumes are beautiful, there are some good background actors, but overall we found this movie very dull. There's no rhythm, not enough story, the acting is not what it should be. Was it an attempt to follow the fashion of history biopics of these last years? Fouquet, Molière, and now La Fontaine. But if his writings are forever famous, does his life deserves a movie? Judging from this one, I'd say not. Plus there are some annoying literary omissions. For instance, in this movie Jean de la Fontaine seems to discover the idea of talking animals, he gets inspiration by looking at animals and insects... Yet everybody knows, and he himself never denied it, that he was mostly inspired by the classic stories of Esope. He merely (yet brilliantly) modernized them.
Review of Jean de La Fontaine - Le défi
