Un moment d'égarement (2015)
Directed by Jean-François Richet

Film Review

Just what was producer Thomas Langmann thinking?  Inviting Jean-Francois Richet to direct a remake of his father's Lolita-themed comedy-drama Un moment d'égarement (1977) sounds like an act of supreme folly, and the film he ended up having to push into cinemas merely lives up to these expectations.  Claude Berri's original film (not his greatest, admittedly) was daring for its time in its depiction of an overtly sexual relationship between a teenage girl and a middle-aged man (the best friend of her father).  Whereas Berri's film fitted the mores if its time and earned praise for its honest treatment of a problematic subject, Richet's vacuous remake is both ridiculously coy and lamentably unconvincing.  In fact the only value Richet's film serves is to show how much more subtle and ambitious Berri's film was, and also how much better was Stanley Donen's American remake, Blame it on Rio (1984).

Jean-Francois Richet is by no means a bad director.  He deserves the acclaim that came his way for his last film, the hugely successful thriller diptych Mesrine (2008).  But to follow such a spectacular film with a lowkey remake whose raison d'être is pretty well non-existent was as much a mistake on his part as it was on Langmann's.   Replacing Jean-Pierre Marielle and Victor Lanoux in the original film are Mesrine star Vincent Cassel and Intouchables hero François Cluzet, both totally wasted in roles that are a pale shadow of those in Berri's film.  Miscast though they are, Cassel and Cluzet at least make an effort to try and make the film work, which is more than can be said for their younger co-stars Lola Le Lann and Alice Isaaz, whose apparent lack of acting ability (aggravated by some risible teenage stereotyping in the script) kills the film's credibility stone dead within twenty minutes.  Other than some pretty photography of the island of Corsica, the film's artistic content is nil.

The differences between this and Claude Berri's Un moment d'égarement are hardly subtle, but they are revealing of a worrying shift in mainstream cinema over the past forty years.  In Berri's film, the liaison between the teenager (who actually looks like a teenager) and the older man (Marielle at his roué best) is carried on beyond the titular 'moment of madness', with both characters actively driving the affair, and the film ends with the two embarking on what might be a long-term relationship.  In Richet's inferior remake, the affair is totally one-sided, with the older man (Cassel) lured into having sex by a predatory teenager and then doing his damnedest to ensure the incident never repeats itself.

There is no sense of closure at the end of Richet's film - what happens next is left to the viewer's imagination.  It is hard to know whether the departures from Berri's film are simply down to grubby commercial reality (the riskier the subject matter, the more scathing the reviews, and the less money it will make) or a reflection of how the acceptance of overt sexuality has shifted down the age profile, so that sexual aggressiveness in teenage girls is now considered far more acceptable than in middle-aged men.  In either case, the fact remains that Richet's remake is an absolute stinker, no more than a worthless echo of Berri's gently provocative and far more meaningful film.

Film Synopsis

Laurent and Antoine are two men in their fifties who have been friends since childhood.  Divorced, they agree to take a summer excursion together, in the company of their feisty teenage daughters - Marie and Louna respectively.  Despite the thirty year age gap between them, Louna finds herself strongly attracted to her father's friend and she seduces him on the beach one evening.  Laurent thinks nothing of this amorous fling - for him, it is just a moment of madness, soon forgotten.  But for Louana it is something far more serious - the start of what she hopes will be a passionate love affair.

Naturally, Antoine is both stunned and infuriated when his daughter confides in him that she has had a liaison with a man of his age.  In fact, his one thought is to find the ageing Lothario and teach him a lesson he will not forget in a hurry.  Laurent now finds himself in the most intolerable of positions.  He feels he ought to come clean and tell his friend that he was the rogue who deflowered his precious daughter, but his innate sense of self-preservation prevents him from doing so.  In his present state, there is no knowing what Antoine will do when he finds the vile specimen of humanity who has dared to rob his daughter of her innocence...