User Reviews

"L'auberge espagnole", although not flawless and very low-key, is probably one of the best films about nostalgia ever made. In "Les poupées russes", the main character of both films, Xavier (Duris), has coped well with his post-Erasmus nostalgia. However, what seemed, at the end of "L'auberge", to be both a cure and a new beginning has turned out to be much less of the latter. Xavier is nearly thirty and his life still badly needs focus.

The film follows Xavier from Paris to London to Moscow to Saint-Petersburg, examining relationships with his ex-Erasmus friends (many of whom look like they got a hold on life better than himself), his ex-girlfriend Martine (Tautou) and various new lovers. The sceneries are exciting and the characters are crafted perhaps with even more care and sincerity than in "L'auberge" (the Duris-Tautou "still friends" duo is a delight) - but the romantic allure of "L'auberge" served well to smoothen the rough edges and dilute the film's hard-boiled message - writer-director Cédric Klapisch is definitely a man of ideas more than anything else. "Les poupées" is no less cerebral, but with the grown-up life being what it is, there's much less in the film to get carried away with - meaning that at times it becomes more of a philosophical drama than a romantic comedy. And for that purpose, perhaps the philosophical message that the film tries to convey - that letting go of dreams is a sad, but necessary part of growing up - is simply not strong enough.

(Preface comment: I strongly recommend seeing 'The Spanish Apartment' first, as it is a prelude to this movie.)

Before I saw the movie the title brought to mind pretty, young Russian women, perhaps the object of desire of non-Russiam men. But that is far from it. The title is a reference to the atom 'Russian Dolls' where successively smaller dolls are nested inside each other. We only learn this near the end, when the main character, Xavier, compares life and love to Russian Dolls. Each time you encounter one (woman, in his case) you wonder if that is the final one, or is there another waiting for you. In fact, the story is mainly of Xavier's trying to make sense out of life, out of his job as a writer, and trying to figure out who he is supposed to love.

The story moves around to three main locations, Paris, London, and Moscow. The cinematography is very interesting, sometimes using a type of time-lapse photography to compress an activity. Romain Duris is very good as the young writer Xavier Rousseau. He gets paired with fellow writer, a Brit named Wendy, to translate a TV script from his French writing into English, and there sometimes appear to be romantic sparks between them. But Xavier always seems to be searching for that next lady, the 'perfect' one. He seems to find it in a beautiful model that he is assigned to help write her story. Audrey Tautou is also good in a minor role as Martine, one of Xavier's former loves.

There actually is a Russian story also. Brit Kevin Bishop plays William, who is working as a lighting technician in Russia when he meets up with Natacha (Evguenya Obraztsova, really a Russian ballerina) and falls for her. He eventually goes away, learns Russian, and returns to try to get her to marry him. He succeeds.

The movie is comedic, for the most part, but does have the serious theme of finding one's love in life. In one funny scene, Xavier's girlfriend Neus suddenly gets out of bad during the late night hours, naked, and proceeds to go into the street. He follows her, also naked, and this turns into a funny scene with him running after her, catching up with her, and both going back to his place, while a fully-dressed couple walk by them.

SPOILERS. In the end, Xavier realizes who he really is, and what life and love are really about, and settles in with Wendy, the writer.

Cédric Klapisch showed his breadth as a filmmaker when, in 1996, he completed two wonderful films in starkly contrasting genres and styles: "Chacun cherche son chat" ("When the Cat's Away"), an endearing light comedy about the eccentrics inhabiting a Parisian neighborhood, and "Un air de famille" ("Family Resemblances"), an intense, claustrophobic psychodrama about the propagation and feeding of neurosis within a family. He made other films after that, which I have not seen, and then came "L'Auberge espagnole" ("The Spanish Apartment") (2002) and now its sequel, "Russian Dolls," both of which, while wildly popular, I find quite dull, really boring in comparison with the two films he created a decade earlier.

Nothing much happens. The old international gang who grew fond of each other as college students in Barcelona (as depicted in "L'Auberge") reunite in St. Petersburg for the marriage of one of their old chums, William (Kevin Bishop), to a Russian girl, Natacha (Evguenya Obraztsova). This event brings to a head the conflict about commitment that has plagued the narcissistic, immature Xavier (Romain Duris) in his on-again-off-again relationship with the statuesque Wendy (Kelly Reilly). At one point Xavier escapes from Wendy's clutches for a brief romp with the dazzling beauty Celia (Lucy Gordon). And so it goes. Will Xavier ever grow up? Will Wendy's short skirts eventually disappear altogether? (Yawn)

I suppose these films are well received by younger adults everywhere, in part because they see reflected in the characters their own struggles to achieve and sustain intimacy, in part because the players come from so many places that younger viewers in almost any western nation can find one of their own on the screen here, and also because the ensemble is composed of good looking people. But the maturational issues are addressed ever so much better in Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset."

Besides Duris, Reilly and Bishop, also reunited for the sequel are Audrey Tautou (as Martine), Cécile De France (Isabelle), Irene Montalà (Neus), Cristina Brondo (Soledad), Federico D'Anna (Alessandro), Barnaby Metschurat (Tobias) and Christian Pagh (Lars). (Zzzzz) My grades: 5.5/10 (C+) (Seen on 01/23/07)

Continuing where L'AUBERGE ESPAGNOLE left off, Russian DOLLS fast-forwards five years into the future and presents us a Xavier we thought we wouldn't be seeing: the professional who has a sordid job writing bad soap opera, far from the successful novelist he had originally planned to be, his life mired in confusion and hovering immaturity. At age thirty he has had unsuccessful relationships with women -- several of them who make their re-appearances from the previous film, among them Audrey Tautou (Martine) and Irene Montalá (Neus) -- and who fate seems to be directing him towards Wendy (Kelly Reilly) who is also involved in a self-destructive affair with a controlling nobody. Along the way, he reconnects with Isabelle in a cheeky sequence that could be a male's fantasy (as it involves lots of lesbians and Durin himself dons a dress and wig), but this leads him to a botched affair with Kassia (Aïssa Maïga) and the pursuit of superficial beauty under the persona of a supermodel (Lucy Gordon). Along the way we also see Wendy's brother William (Kevin Bishop) find love and marital happiness with the Russian ballerina Natascha (Evguyenya Obraztsova), and a reunion that finds all of the original cast members together. However, this is mainly Romain Durin, Kelly Reilly, and in a lesser way, Cecile de France's movie -- a fragmented soap opera that displays the continuing adventures of these young people as they move through life and try to find relative happiness in the adult world.

Well,I like the acting of Romain Duris and since L'Auberge Espagnole was a nice movie I was quite eager to watch Les Poupeés Russes.In general, I like the movie.There are not many movies that elaborate in such a way about European life and people in Europe.However like in L'Auberge Espagnole, I have some difficulties of understanding the logic of the director.Well talking about so deep things like love, how can they be so superficial about some facts about life?Well, the thing is, Romain Duris in the movie sleeps with many girls. And when she goes to kookai and meets the French girl from Senegal he says that it's the first time he approaches a girl in such a way.You think that he's a naive guy and if that's the first time he does such a thing, what is the logic behind him sleeping with many girls..This I really do not get!The director creates a somewhat inconsistent character.

Secondly,when Wendy's brother is marrying, there are only Wendy's friends whom he met in Barcelona for the wedding.Well, that's one thing I hate about movies!Doesn't this guy have any other friends?And in the first movie most of the people didn't like him at all but eventually just so that they'll be together in St.Petersburg, the director brings them together there.This is really superficial.I think that the directors should think about those kinds of details.

Those were 2 things that caught my attention and L'Auberge Espagnole also had those kinds of flaws.However overall, I must say that I like the movie

Cédric Klapisch's 2002 L'Auberge Espagnole was a hit both in France and on the more mainstream Miramaxical side of the US art-house circuit. Its multi-lingual picture of the international student life in Barcelona went down easy, and Russian Dolls is the sequel, again featuring Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Cécile de France, Kelly Reilly, et al.

Russian Dolls picks up Xavier (Duris) five years later, now a well-paid writer, and focuses more on Auberge's most provocative character, Wendy's volatile brother William (Kevin Bishop). Oscillating between odious and cute, Bishop is an actor whose little riffs are irresistible if sometimes troubling. He seemed a bigot in Barcelona, especially when he suggested that the German roommate, Tobias (Barnaby Metschurat), must inevitably be a Nazi. Russian Dolls gives William a chance to redeem himself by falling in love with a Russian ballet dancer touring England and going the extra mile to woo her, taking a year to learn Russian before he looks her up in St. Petersburg. His romanticism trumps his bigotry. William's suit is rewarded and there's a full reunion of the Barcelona students for the Russian wedding finale with various amorous contretemps along the way.

This is Romain Duris' fifth film with Klapisch. Though it was Duris'edgy performance in Jacques Audiard's The Beat My Heart Skipped (released three months before Dolls) that most profoundly altered Duris' reputation into that of a serious actor, still it's clear that Klapisch and Duris have been very good for each other.

While William finds true love, Wendy and Xavier have their own romantic whirlwind. Wendy seems to pick boozy, unreliable men. Xavier's still friendly with his former girlfriend, Martine – how could Klapisch banish Audrey Tautou? – but he shares Wendy's unlucky-in-love status. Even Martine seems stuck with a round of multiple partners -- a life now more worrying than fun: "Welcome to the thirties!" she declares. Xavier briefly dates a cute black girl, uses his lesbian ex-roommate Isabelle (Cécile de France) as a stand-in "fiancée" to meet his 98-year-old grandpa (Pierre Gérald), has a quick romance with would-be memoirist twenty-something super-model Celia (Lucy Gordon) and homes in on Wendy (Kelly Reilly).

When the TV series Xavier is writing a sequel to is bought by BBC, it has to be switched to English, and who should turn out to be a great scriptwriter but Wendy. Xavier commutes back and forth between Wendy's place in London and Celia's fab flat in Paris overlooking Notre Dame, speeding back and forth on the Eurostar. Later he slips off to Moscow from St. Petersburg in the middle of the preparations for William's marriage to Natacha (Evguenya Obraztsova). Locations change pretty fast, and never stop being glamorous and colorful.

This is strictly movie land, and it would be a mistake to take any of Russian Dolls too seriously, but Klapisch, who had five years to ponder this sequel but likes to improvise his script from day to day during shooting, knows how to keep the ball rolling. His whirlwind round of warring and flirting and uniting couples is sort of like Gabriele (Last Kiss) Muccini's operatic style, but with more international travel and fewer midlife crises. Paradoxically, though Muccini's Italians can seem devastatingly superficial, Klapish's motley crew seems even simpler. However, while Muccino's men and women, boys and girls are full of themselves, Xavier has a wry awareness that his glam life as a ghostwriter is essentially shallow.

It's felicitous that the final post-wedding sequence on a boat is one of the film's most memorable. Kevin Bishop's parents fight, the old Barcelona roommates give teary little speeches, the German boy agrees to forget the Nazi slur, and William throws up and cries with joy. Since this was a reunion for the young cast that was itself emotional, the scene has a genuine feeling. Klapisch will consider another sequel five more years hence, and maybe this will turn out like a romantic fictional version of Michael Apted's "—Up" series. This isn't deep, but it's warm, entertaining film-making with style and energy.

(Shown as part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Today at Lincoln Center March 2006, Les poupées russes opened in Paris June 15, 2005. It will be distributed by IFC and is scheduled for limited US release May 2006.)

*SPOILERS* I don't know why I usually think that Romain Duris always gets the same parts, the "french guy" part, playboy without a cause, always dumb and uncontrollably spiteful when he's angry, spending his time destroying all he's trying to build, always trying to find dumber answers to dumb questions ( and believe me, as a French, seeing the "french guy" is such a bad cliché is quite annoying ). And that movie wasn't there to prove me wrong.

The thing is, I'm not into movies where characters do not evolve when those are so dumb i cannot identify myself with them. Here, Romain spends his time flirting, sleeping with every kind of girls he happens to find, not making any kind of effort just trying to make it work with one of them and asking himself "why is life so damn complicated ?". He doesn't hesitate one bit to cheat on his so called "loved one" and finally "realises" that he does love her ( dose he really ? ) because the nice chick that's got him cheating leaves him just like that to hunt for more interesting people. I quoted "realises" because it's less "realises" than it is finding himself an excuses to get back to the previous chick.

There are in this movie some of the most Dumbest reflections about love and relationships that I've heard in my life ( for example : you have to "try" every girl you can get your hands on to find the "one"... in fact that is not really dumb if you take it in a large scale, but in the characters perspective, regarding how he deals with women without making anything of effort except for begging them to forgive whatever mistakes he makes all the time, ( that is, when he's not just yelling and shouting at them ), i find it really revolting )

Of course there are good points in the movie.. The "describing the writer's profession" is often true and realistic, some jokes are really to die for ( especially the one with the neighbor being so amazed to realize that the big bang theory is just a .. theory :D ), the cast is great ( Tautou makes a great "idon't care about my surroundings, i just acer about everyone else" kind of 70s ideas person, Cecile De France Strongly depicts a bit too excessive lesbian), and finally, the movie depicts greatly the mood and state of mind of 30 y/o nowadays ( i'm 30, I should know some ). I'm sad that the "we are all part of the same planet" part is done in 2 minutes at the end of a marriage, like it HAD just to Be somewhere in the movie, just to honor the one character that has evolved since the previous movie, the characters usually being depicted in a single boring and minor storyline...

But I think the thing that mainly bothers me in this is .. it isn't at all a reflection. It isn't at all a movie saying " you won't get far being an idiot" because the girls will always fall for you and forgive you whatever stupid things you might do and that's just the way it is. Shouting, cheating are not issues, because there's love. And at the same time, the characters spend their time not understanding what's wrong with their lives, while not making any kind of efforts. Just living passively, just compelled by what they want to do or not. because their so called "freedom" is something that has to be absolute, whatever the consequences. and why is that ? the Romain's character says it like there's no way around it : i won't change, it's my way, that's who i am. ( i couldn't help but understanding it as : i'm just a complete idiot, bear with me because that's all there is to it" ) I won't be surprised to see another movie with yet again the same characters making exactly the same mistakes, and asking themselves the same dumb questions in another 10 years or so. May be that's the point finally ... proving that people do not evolve ?

I got strongly annoyed and bored at the half of the movie while still struggling to find it interesting, but i'm sorry, i just didn't. I've heard rumors here and there saying that Mr Klapish tried to make a bad movie on purpose ... i don't know if these a accurate, but to me he certainly succeeded

As much as I loved 2002's L'Auberge Espanol, I was disappointed by the followup film, Poupées Russes. While it had it's moments, it suffered from many contrived situations and accompanying dialogue, as when Romain Duris' Xavier is put in the uncomfortable situation of his ex girlfriend - Audrey Tatou's character of Martine, unexpectedly crossing paths with his current love interest, a shopgirl named Kassia played by the captivating Aïssa Maïga. Klapisch reduces Cecile de France's formerly mutifacteted characterization of Isabelle to an unsympathetic coke snorting lesbian who takes in one lover after the next. The action centers around the unlikely marriage of William (Kevin Bishop) to a Russian ballerina named Natacha (Evguenya Obraztsova). Cédric Klapisch makes a meek attempt at recreating the sense of connectedness among his characters that he gave us in L'Auberge Espanol by creating a few minutes that include the full cast of L'Auberge as they raise their glasses to the newlyweds in the final minutes of the film, but I didn't buy it, as they'd been noticeably absent prior to this contrived moment. Even Kelly Reilly's character Wendy, although central to the sequel, was given contrived dialogue and unlikely footwear. Martine is a single mother in this sequel, although we never see the father of her child, nor are we privy to the story that led to her current situation.

I can't help but feel that Klapisch is trying to resurrect Jean-Pierre Léaud's likable character of Antoine Doinel, who we first met in 1959 in François Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups, and who's life story we followed in four subsequent films: L'Amour à vingt ans, Baisers volés, Domicile conjugal, and L'Amour en fuite. Worst of all, the ending of Poupées Russes was left deliberately vague, in a style that smacked of Hollywood sequelisms. In the film's closing moments Xavier tells us in a hurried voice-over that he's run out of time to explain his situation, but that it doesn't matter. And why exactly doesn't it matter? Perhaps because all will be revealed in the next installation? I smell a threequel, one in which we see Xavier in five or ten years, married to Wendy, and now a father. Truffaut already gave us this story in Domicile conjugal.