Deception
cinemathequeWriters adapted to the big screen are an easy gambit because it is easier to feel bad for someone drowning their sorrows in the written word than it is an overarching thespian coming to. At least, that is how it is often played out. Deception attempts that and has a fine cast to consider such a stream of thought with. The real deception is that of director Arnaud Desplechin, whose utilisation of such grand stars and talents would offer audiences the null idea that Deception has promise. Feeling for the star of this show is rather easy until the penny drops. Isolation comes at a price and reason, but Deception is wavering in its dedication to an American writer trapped in London.
What it means for the characters is directionless wonder, what it means for the audience is unadaptable boredom. A waste of Lea Seydoux's natural charms on camera, of Denis Podalydès' ability to heave goodness out of a bad scene, and of an audience’s time. A camera that never stops moving is the sign of a director that doesn’t know what to say. From office to office, setting to setting, with no real idea of what it could mean for the characters. Inarticulate at the best of times, Desplechin’s work is as cluttered and inconclusive as the desk he pans over at the start of his film. All too abrupt and much to take in, with no time at all to conceive of it.
Although the desire and passion between Seydoux and Podalydès are shown with exceptional, coy beauty, it means nothing if the lust that is perceived is a soulless one. Its method to this madness is narration, the beauty of the written word and the actual act of writing it. Desplechin gets that right, at least. He beautifies and simplifies the act of writing. The little twitches of the hand, the routines all great wordsmiths have and had for themselves. Whether it was rising at 3pm or refusing to seek the solutions of the real world, it worked a charm for their periods of destructive restructuring and pursuit of knowledge. For Deception, it is the usual glum affair of whisky-drinking, barely-shaven hopeless romantics and the younger women they pursue. There is nothing new, exciting or at all interesting about that, and Desplechin should know better.
The beautification of the written word is unstoppable. Filmmakers have learned somewhat that aggrandising their own perspective and place in the world is an ego trip. To take another art form and study what are the barebones and essentials of either craft is a free ticket to make the same commentary on their own line of work. But the commentary Desplechin makes is too erratic, too unfocused on what should have been a very delightful feature that relies almost entirely on the back and forth between its leads. Deception is a deceiving piece not just because it should know better than to rely on empty white voids and romantic duties, but because it says all the right ideas and colours them in, but without the flaming passion that would unify the link between intent and earnestness.