Un baiser papillon (2011)
Directed by Karine Silla

Film Review

In 2002, the actress Karine Silla Pérez collaborated on the screenplay of her husband Vincent Perez's directorial debut feature Peau d'ange.  A decade on, Perez repays the compliment by playing one of the principal roles in her own debut feature as a director, Un baiser papillon.  Whatever else the film may lack it certainly isn't high class acting talent.  The cast boasts a remarkable ensemble that includes Elsa Zylberstein, Cécile De France, Jalil Lespert, Edith Scob, Firmine Richard, Serge Hazanavicius and (in an all-too-brief cameo appearance) Gérard Depardieu.

Unfortunately, this deluge of star power is just about all the film has going for it.  What could have been an honest and thoughtful reflection on love, life and death ends up looking like an extremely bad imitation of a Claude Lelouch film (imagine Toute une vie inter-spliced with Les Uns et les autres).  With no discernible discipline or originality on the writing front, and even less ability being shown in the direction, Un baiser papillon ends up as a horribly disjointed ensemble piece that is so inundated with clichés, caricature and tow-curling platitudes that there's scarcely a moment when it rings true.

The film's glossy presentation (too pretty to be real) and glossy cast (ditto, by at least a factor of ten) cannot disguise the staggering vacuity of the mass of poorly developed interlocking storylines that fail to coalesce into anything resembling an interesting and engaging narrative.  There are just too many characters, too many stories, too much patronising waffle and too little substance to make Un baiser papillon worth the effort to sit through.  As the film reminds us, life is just too short.  Imagine if you can a series of excerpts snipped from a glossy television soap opera and carelessly jumbled together with no artistry whatsoever.  This is what the film resembles, only worse.

Film Synopsis

Billie is a settled forty year old who is devoted to her husband Louis.  She is happily married with two children and life couldn't be better for her.  Then comes the terrible day when she discovers to her horror that she has a life-threatening cancer.  She had hoped to find some words of comfort from her friend Marie, but she has problems of her own.  A well-known actress, Marie's only desire is to start a family, but this appears to be one gift that nature intends to keep from her.  Fortunately, Alice, the nurse who takes care of Billie during her treatment, appears to have all the right answers to life's problems...