Men in shiny shirts plod their way through a crooning tune, old ladies sway in time to the music and Gérard Depardieu pauses to announce that this week the tombola has been organised by the town hall. c and whether he’s hefting his bulk between line dancing pensioners or wooing a beautiful younger woman, Depardieu sends himself up with tender charm as the chanteur and ageing romantic Alain. The younger woman is Marion (Cécile de France), a colleague of Alain’s estate agent friend Bruno (Mathieu Amalric), and after Alain and Marion spend a drunken night together he sets out to win her heart.
The odds are clearly stacked against Alain, not only in his love life but also in his career, as karaoke nights and DJs encroach on his territory. Defiant in the face of adversity, however, he continues in his quest, and it soon becomes clear that Marion needs Alain – or at least something like him – in her life.
Giannoli is careful not to reveal too much of his characters’ lives, hinting at histories that sketch out rather than reveal the characters before us. A beautiful fatalism prevails; there’s never a sense that it’s all going to be alright in the end, and when the lovers hurt one another they must simply pick themselves up and carry on.
Many of the conversations between Alain and Marion take place in stark spaces – empty houses, a bright white kitchen or a bare dressing room – as Giannoli strips away social norms and common values to allow us to appreciate the unlikely lovers for exactly who they are.
Ultimately, however, pieces of the story are left just a little too opaque. For example, Marion’s unreliability and infidelities are impossible to fathom, as is Alain’s career, which sees him veering from an old people’s home to a packed arena within what seems to be a couple of weeks. A tale of two misfits finding their own confused happiness, their motivation can be difficult to grasp at times but The Singer remains an interesting and unusual love story.
