My Afternoons With Margueritte

From the director who brought you Conversations With My Gardener you know what you're getting with a movie that has a title like My Afternoons With Margueritte, which sees two people sit in a park discussing pigeons and Camus and such. Pleasant for the duration, this comedy-drama just doesn't have enough meat on its slender bones to warrant even its short running time.

Although you wouldn't know it by his pleasant manner, handyman Germain Chazes (Depardieu) has had a tough life. Called an oaf by his mother (Maurier) and a dimwit by his teacher, and a moron by the psuedo-intellectual patrons of the café he hangs out in, the semi-literate Germain grew up to accept his lot in life. Living in a caravan in the garden of his mother's house (the caravan was once occupied by one of her lovers, whom she chased away after stabbing him in the leg with a pitchfork), Germain lives for the nightly visits of bus driver Annette (Gullemin). But this sole reason for living changes when he meets the 95-year-old Margueritte (Casadesus) in the park; the elderly woman introduces him to the world of words and books and Germain grows in confidence.

My Afternoons With Margueritte, as you can tell from the synopsis, is a slight affair, a delicate and sentimental movie that threatens to fall down at any moment such is the brevity of plot. When Margueritte reads Camus' The Plague to Germain, she skips past the first few pages "to get into the plot," it's a little in-joke from the director Jean Becker to his audience. With not a lot going on in the story department, Becker keeps the scenes neat and tidy, sometimes flitting through them, and the various flashbacks, at breakneck speed, relying on the characters to move the film forward. They do, spitting out the quick-fire dialogue as fast as they can.

Despite all this, however, Becker can't help his movie from being a little twee. Enjoyable, amiable and charming while it plays out, and boasting some lovely chemistry from Depardieu and Casadesus, there's really nothing here that will stick in the memory once the brief 82 minutes are up. The syrupy ending might be too much for some and reasons why the young and pretty Gullemin might want a baby with the ageing Depardieu is never explored.