New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Charlotte O'Sullivan's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Claude Chabrol.
Cast: Ludivine Sagnier, Francois Berleand, Benoit Magimel, Valeria Cavalli
Description: Beautiful and talented, Gabrielle Deneige is a local celebrity on a French television station as the always perky weathergirl. The outlook seems bright for Gabrielle: incredibly rich, pharmaceutical heir Paul Gaudens is infatuated and longs to make her his wife, even if it means defying his mother. However, Gabrielle finds herself inexplicably drawn to author Charles Saint-Denis, who has been married to his wife Dona for 25 glorious years. The weathergirl and her married paramour share an erotically-charged afternoon at Charles's pied-a-terre which sparks a full blown affair. However, with Paul continuing his amorous pursuit, Gabrielle begins to deliberate whether she has chosen the right suitor.
Country: FR. 2008. 114mins
French New Wave auteur Claude Chabrol is often compared to Woody Allen. Both men are pushing 80, both are madly profilic. Nor do the uncanny similarities end there. This 2006 black comedy, like Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona, centres on a smart, sexually daring young blonde who wants to follow her heart rather than her head.
The big problem with Chabrol’s offering is its smart-alec script. Right at the start, our attention is brought to the source material, a turn of the century scandal involving womanizing architect Standford White, his current mistress and her husband, a news story that Chabrol claims “is more easily imaginable today than during the era in which it happened”.
Via the story of thoroughly modern Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier) - a TV star caught between debauched, manipulative writer, Charles Saint-Denis (Francois Berleand) and unstable, perverted rich kid, Paul, (Benoit Magimel) - Chabrol wants to show that Western culture still flip-flops between decadence and puritannism and that now, as then, neither system allows women to stand on their own two feet.
But his take on the naughty naughties fails to convince. In terms of her career, Gabrielle is a very specific creation - her British equivalent would be The Culture Show’s Lauren Laverne - yet she lacks texture. She quickly forgives Paul for trying to throttle her after an argument. Later, she meekly lets him choose her dresses (a red one, for a crucial scene) as if she were Scarlett O’Hara in Gone For The Wind. The French public, via a last act court case, take her her seriously. We can’t.
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Poor Sagnier. A blissfully slippery presence in any number of post-modern projects (Francoise Ozon’s 8 Women and Swimming Pool), and mischievously sweet in lesser fare (P.J. Hogan’s Peter Pan), she seemed proof that experience and youth can go hand in hand. Here, for the first time, she looks like a novice, telegraphing Gabrielle’s excitement/naivete/strain. Her talent is made to look thin indeed and it’s this - not the string of silly outfits designed to show off her long legs and nipples - that makes you want to lower your eyes.
Granted, much about the film is watcheable. Berleand and Magimel - though their performances are very different in tone - complement each other, while Caroline Silhol, as Paul’s immaculately haggard mother, steals scene after scene. Her revelation about his childhood expodes gently, just as it should.
The film itself, however, remains an icky mess. One’s final impression is that aging legends make unreliable puppet-masters. And that it’s all too easy for a desirable young actress to be left dangling in mid-air.
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