The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life

From its title downwards, this uninspiring French dramady embraces cliché at every turn, relying on simplistic humour, obvious emotional cues and performances straight out of Albert Square to tell its story.

Rémi Bezançon’s film offers a peek into the lives of a dysfunctional bourgeois family unit that counteracts much of the good work done by The Royal Tenenbaums and more recently, Arnaud Desplechin’s wonderful A Christmas Tale. We open on a scene in which eldest son Albert (Pio Marmaï) puts down the Duval family dog, resulting in a period of group mourning. He then decides to move in to his own flat, much to the chagrin of his mother, the scatterbrained Marie-Jeanne (Zabou Breitman). Younger sister Fleur (Déborah François) and younger brother Raphaël (Marc-André Grondin) are already fighting over who gets his room, while laid-back patriarch Robert (Jacques Gamblin) smokes his cigarettes and decides to truck on with his life as a taxi driver.

The film is then split into five chapters, each concentrating on a critical moment from the lives of each family member: Albert’s new life away from the brood; Fleur’s post-puberty sexual cravings (and subsequent disillusionment); Raphaël’s interest in the air guitar; Marie-Jeanne’s discovery of her daughter’s secret life; and Albert’s health troubles.

Admittedly, there are a few nice touches that mostly occur during the moments of quiet contemplation which bookend the stretches of hysterical soap opera (one involving a blow-up pillow is particularly lovely). But on the down side, this ‘ingenious’ structure simply allows Bezançon (who also wrote the film) to sweep any texture, subtlety and deeper reflection aside in favour of concentrating on the big, meaty events, leaving us with a portrait of a family who only appear to experience extreme highs and extremes lows – nothing in between. The bottom line is that life can be harsh, but dealing with tragedy will make you stronger in the end. A heartening outlook for sure, but not a particularly original one.

Alan Mack

Anticipation:

Quirky French ensemble comedies are always worth a look.

Enjoyment:

Originality? Moi?

In Retrospect:

Oh non, non, non.