User Reviews

Publicity for Jean-Marc Moutout's new film , The Feelings Factory/La fabrique des sentiments (Paris-released Feb 5, 2008), is misleading in making it look like a story about speed dating: "seven women, seven men, seven minutes and a cocktail." There are two speed dating sequences, sparklingly staged and photographed. And a picture built around this curiously mechanical modern way of finding a mate might have been a good idea--but what Moutout's doing is not that simple by a long sight. Focused on a main character who's a successful 36-year-old professional woman in Paris without a man in her life, The Feelings Factory does its best to be complex and contemporary about the issues faced by such a person, and in various scenes taken separately certainly succeeds at that. But as a whole the film winds up being scattered and unconvincing. Moutout ought to relax and focus a bit more, give more consideration to narrative structure and character and let the social anatomizing take second place, and he could make a more involving, coherent film.

Eloise (Elsa Zylberstein, of the excellent La petite Jerusalem, and quite believable here) is a member of a posh Paris firm specialized in residential law who (we're to believe) is so accomplished at her job the senior partner proposes to have her take his place upon his imminent retirement. That would be a challenge in itself--one that might make marriage look like a difficult proposition, despite the ticking biological clock. Eloise doesn't seem nervous about this new prospect. In fact she immediately proposes to her family to take on the expenses of maintaining her aging grandma at home, based on the expected new income.

The speed dating, on the other hand, shows a certain desperation on her part--even though she pretends it's just an efficient "businesslike" method; it also simply signals on her part a lack of time to deal with a personal life. It's being videoed for TV (Eloise declines to be the focus) and is presented as something bright and glossily cinematic as a TV show. Besides the non-entities, there's a man who does nothing but complain about his inadequacy and the ridiculousness of this way of finding a mate. He's André (Jacques Bonnaffé). Since Bonnaffé is a busy and well-known actor with second billing here (American viewers may remember him from Lemming), we have to be suspicious, and the whole movie is built on the trite gambit that the least likely participant turns out to be the keeper. Conversely the "perfect" fellow, Jean-Luc (Bruno Putzulu), himself a presentable-looking and successful lawyer who turns out to be attentive and good in bed, is, of course, a fake who lies and cheats. Luckily Eloise finds out--coincidentally, while at the hospital, where she spots him with another woman who's obviously central to his life.

The hospital visits are due to a whole other issue: on top of missing her periods and having unwonted lactation, she is having dizzy spells. It is this health problem that looms over most of the action. It's a while before Eloise gets a diagnosis and a while longer before there is treatment. Meanwhile as Jean-Luc is turning out wrong and the huge promotion is offered and caring for grandma is considered, André keeps popping up unexpectedly.

It's pretty obvious that Bonnaffé is meant to be the voice of humanity, the one "real" person among the "eligible" men Eloise encounters in her plastic yuppie world. The writing makes him alternately neurotic as hell and deeply philosophical. Is his view of life negative or merely realistic? The actor is well cast for this. He's a bit like Jean-Pierre Bacri, but not quite as edgy and smart: a man who can be a complete nerd or just a pain in the butt one minute, and a laugh a minute the next. When Bonnaffé's character André gets into Eloise's big apartment, though, he typically ruins everything, and his dating history (the dialogue at this point curiously seems to be a continuation of the speed dating session) makes him sound extremely unpromising. The better to make her lifelong soulmate, apparently.

A final coda leaps forward several years to find Eloise married with a couple of adorable kids. How she got there, and in fact what happened to her partnership in the law firm, are matters the film leaves blank. And what the final scene is about escapes me.

The film received moderate reviews in Paris. Others besides myself felt the sociology and the health problem detracted from the focus of the film and weighed it down.

Shown as part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, Feb. 29-March 9, 2008.

I saw this movie yesterday at the Berlin International Film Festival. Not only was the main actress there (Elsa Zylberstein in a red dress), but also Bruno Putzulu (playing Jean-Luc), the director, the writers, and some of the producers came on stage afterwards as well and answered a few questions.

The movie is about a part of society which seems to become more and more common. We have very successful women - great job, great flat, good looking, ... - who are realizing in their thirties that they are missing out on love and family. They feel lonely and begin searching for this part as well.

The movie follows Éloïse in very turbulent part in her life. She is a successful carrier-woman. She works in a nice big office as a property lawyer, where the seniors listen to her and she seems respected in her work. The senior partner offers her a great opportunity to become a partner as well.

Unfortunately she is very lonely. So she signs up for speed-dating. We experience the main character as a diverse woman with many different layers. It depends on her opposite how she behaves - and it changes almost instantly. As does it usually in real life as well. During this dating event she meets Jean-Luc. He seems perfect: good-looking, sincere, successful, a lawyer like her. Unfortunately he turns out to be a fake and a liar. So the obvious choice for perfection is not always the best.

In a bookstore she meets another guy from the dating event. This guy seemed strange and awkward during the 7 minutes in the club. He had an outburst and I don't think the woman would have ever considered calling him. Which she didn't. But after this chance meeting they go out, they talk. They meet up more. When she invites him into her flat after the museum he goes too fast. He is clumsy and when she refuses he half threatens her. Éloïse shouts at him and he accuses her of leading him on. André leaves in anger and she doesn't expect to see him again. Which happens when she goes to another speed-dating event.

She also suffers from increasingly frequent dizzy spells. The doctors discover a tumor in her head which needs to be removed. We see her fear - what happens with her body and of losing fertility. During the second speed-dating she loses consciousness and needs to go into hospital where she is operated immediately. André sits with her in the ambulance and when she wakes up - without the tumor after the operation - he is waiting for her (flowers, ..) Here we could think the movie will end - with a happy ending. But no, it's a French movie .... We see a scene a few years later - a seemingly happy family with a twist.

The German movie "Shoppen" has the same subject: speed-dating. It is interesting how different the German and the French film makers tackle the subject. This was part of my interest in this movie in the first place. My answer? Very different.

I have noticed a few years ago that a lot of french movies have a repetitive circle in the story. So does this one. My interpretation of the last scene: There is this statement in the movie of people not changing versus people mature and change. In my opinion the movie is about the first: people mature, the environment, the circumstances change - but the people themselves do do not. Take André for example: he spied on Éloïse the very first time he met her after the speed dating encounter. After the bookstore he follows her to work. So does he when he checks her computer. She left her first long relationship after 7 years. While her previous partner was quite contented she was looking for more ("This can't be all.") So does she again. I think her grandmother also played a role. She told Éloïse that she and her husband had a very happy marriage. They were chosen for each other but came to love each other out of habit. While the physical love didn't play a big role the children were all their love. What comes around, goes around ........

I saw this movie yesterday at the Berlinale festival with my girlfriend and we were bored to death. It starts out interesting, though. The somehow awkward situation of a speed dating is pictured, with surprising characters and portraying people who have all come with different ideas of how that could work out. From then on it all starts slowly going on a depressing way downward. We get to see that though Eloise has a successful career, she is unhappy. Then she has an affair with one guy who turns out to be an asshole, then she gets cancer, then the colleagues at work start chit-chatting about her, her granny is about to die, she starts an affair with another asshole... and all this time the movie tries to get more psychedelic to show the torment of that poor woman. And all the time I kept thinking: Hell, should a 37-year-old know that men can be untrue? That you should not invite weird underfxxxed misanthropic guys into your apartment and tease them? But we are supposed to feel empathy for her. I did not. Now you could say this is a movie that is not afraid of showing the sad truth of modern urban life. But I say it is just whiny and does not dare to make a real statement, instead follows an immature and superficial woman through all of her inner emptiness. Boring.