You know you're in trouble when a song starts in the middle of a movie and the story stops developing for a while: They do so here because they want to stay faithful to the romcom genre and Décalage horaire / Jet Lag is a French take on a distinct American genre. This fails for several reasons, one of them being that the character and conversation-driven French movie is at odds with the light and caricature-driven American romcom-genre.
It tells the story of Rose (Juliette Binoche) and Félix (Jean Reno) in a not too obvious way: Their background, problems and dreams come out one by one. Both have marriage troubles, a troubled relation with one of their parents and both have unfulfilled dreams. Rose is having terrible make-up on but seems to be excellent in make-up; Félix has set up a company of deep-frozen food he sells to supermarkets while his unfulfilled dream is it to become a star-studded chef. Rose and Félix regularly meet at the airport waiting for a plane to leave, a metaphor of their lives stuck by bad decisions (and mild criticism of the French public service always on strike). In the end they make relevant decisions, also about their relation to each other (with the genre in mind we all know what that means).
The story is told in bits and pieces and it works as a means to keep us interested about their life stories. Also, the meetings they have don't shy away from being assertive, offensive or intrusive as they expect it is their only meeting. From the airport hotel on the movie goes off the genre track, and arrives in the usual French habit of long and uninteresting conversations. French people have a tendency for long and deep conversations about not too offensive and personal subjects as a way of courtesy and care for one's private life, so this is rather challenging stuff I guess.
Most actors try comedy in their careers at least once. Most fail, so Binoche and Reno have nothing to be ashamed of. Décalage horaire is a failed attempt at light-hearted French comedy.
It tells the story of Rose (Juliette Binoche) and Félix (Jean Reno) in a not too obvious way: Their background, problems and dreams come out one by one. Both have marriage troubles, a troubled relation with one of their parents and both have unfulfilled dreams. Rose is having terrible make-up on but seems to be excellent in make-up; Félix has set up a company of deep-frozen food he sells to supermarkets while his unfulfilled dream is it to become a star-studded chef. Rose and Félix regularly meet at the airport waiting for a plane to leave, a metaphor of their lives stuck by bad decisions (and mild criticism of the French public service always on strike). In the end they make relevant decisions, also about their relation to each other (with the genre in mind we all know what that means).
The story is told in bits and pieces and it works as a means to keep us interested about their life stories. Also, the meetings they have don't shy away from being assertive, offensive or intrusive as they expect it is their only meeting. From the airport hotel on the movie goes off the genre track, and arrives in the usual French habit of long and uninteresting conversations. French people have a tendency for long and deep conversations about not too offensive and personal subjects as a way of courtesy and care for one's private life, so this is rather challenging stuff I guess.
Most actors try comedy in their careers at least once. Most fail, so Binoche and Reno have nothing to be ashamed of. Décalage horaire is a failed attempt at light-hearted French comedy.