NYFF 2020: French Exit
nyff 2020Family has long stood as one of the more complex and often painful aspects of the human condition. Azazel Jacobs' newest film, French Exit, looks to capture a dysfunctional family plagued with grief and a wandering hopelessness. Years after the death of her husband, the endlessly classy yet equally moody Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer) has finally run out of money, causing her to pack her belongings and take herself, her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) and their cat to Paris. While there, Frances is forced to interact with those outside her bubble, leading to hard conversations and raw emotions shining through all while the spirit of her dead husband makes his presence known in various ways. Quirky and quiet, there is something seductively poetic within the film that hooks the audience and engages in a powerful conversation even as the film stands firm on its casualness, never feeling the need to go over the top to find its emotional power.
Melancholic and cold, the film holds the same thesis on storytelling as it does its interpretation of Paris. Many audiences will be turned off by the film's quiet and often meandering tone, never finding a fire or massive revelation to kick its story into the next gear. Where this traditionally would be a negative, there is something within French Exit that makes this choice stand out as one of the biggest positives. For a film that is incredibly quirky and not afraid to engage with fantastical elements, French Exit stands as an honest look at human emotion and interaction. The choice to subscribe to a quiet and held back tone speaks more as a sign of confidence than anything else. The film has faith that its naturally rough dialogue and emotional weight will transfer from the story naturally without needing to break its natural flow for a large cinematic expression, which often is far from how humans react in reality. Where this choice might leave some audiences cold as they wait for that large emotional breakthrough that is to be expected from films like this, for others this will only further the haunting effect the film will have. Conversations are often cut short as its players refuse to acknowledge their shortcomings or say the difficult yet honest thing on their mind, which speaks to the honest human reaction.
This works so well for a variety of reasons – one of the largest being the acting. Michelle Pfeiffer chews up every line of dialogue she is given, providing an instantly iconic, moody and personable performance that speaks volumes even in her moments without dialogue. In a supporting role lies Lucas Hedges who might just be giving one of his best performances of his young career. Through films like Honey Boy and Boy Erased, Hedges has proven himself to be quite the exceptional actor when it comes to evoking emotion out of his characters, and his role in French Exit is no exception. Restraint and thoughtful, Hedges is able to skillfully slip into the background of the narrative only to, out of nowhere, deliver some of the hardest hitting pieces of dialogue in the entire film. The complex pain and anger that his character experiences due to his childhood where he had to grow up quickly, being thrusted into his parent's drama, stands out as hauntingly realistic and powerful. The film naturally allows this character to express himself and slowly open more and more to the audience.
This tone and the solid acting comes together due to the screenplay from Patrick deWitt, who also wrote the original book the film is based on. Not only is the film able to craft engaging dialogue that keeps the audience's attention despite the more casual tone, but it blends its fantastical elements shockingly well. It might come as a surprise considering the earlier description of the film but French Exit is a film that contains spirits and magical cats right alongside its more grounded plot elements. Whilst this is yet another piece of the film that might stand out as a negative light on paper, the actual result of these elements are surprisingly positive. Being yet another element of the film held together by the incredibly grounded and quiet tone the film takes on, French Exit always maintains a firm control over how it uses these story beats and utilises them as a catalyst to allow further unique character growths without letting the fantastical plot elements overrun the grounded emotional drama that the rest of the film is. The third and final piece of the screenplay is its personality. French Exit might be overall passive, but it has a strong comedic voice at times that is often surprising and jarring. This is yet another piece of the screenplay which could stand out as distracting and completely out of place yet, despite standing out in the context of the overall screenplay, this is another bold choice that works and adds a grounded quirkiness to the film that further helps the bridge between reality and fantasy to be developed and sturdy for the entire runtime of the film.
This craft is not just seen in how the film handles its emotions but also within its technical elements. From a standout score to wonderful visuals by cinematographer Tobias Datum, the film carries a distinct technical language that helps bring its world to life. The elegance, moodiness and repressed emotion all speak through these technical choices, forming a setting that naturally supports the narrative and elevates the material overall. The one area of the film where it feels like this strong craft starts to lose focus is about halfway through the film. In French Exit’s purposeful meandering, there is a chunk of the film that starts to overexpose some of its characters and fall into the motions a bit too much, but this is only for a short segment before it quickly finds its footing again.
French Exit is a film of contradictions that is so unconcerned with following the established cinematic rules that it almost could be seen as reckless. It is a film that will refuse to embrace a typical heightened drama for the purpose of containing a natural portrayal of the complexity of human emotions only to then introduce fantastical plot elements that are entirely out of this world. What is most shocking isn't even that the film has the gut to attempt these ideas, which on paper seem like a recipe for disaster, but that it has the ability to pull them off. While watching French Exit, one's brain is aware that it should hate what it is experiencing but, at the same time, it is impossible not to get sucked into the drama and emotion. Bizarre and bold yet also quiet and passive, French Exit is easily one of the most confusing films in recent memory not just for its filmmaking choices but also its ability to captivate audiences and leave them hanging on every piece of dialogue.
