Cet Amour-Lá

In Josee Dayan's Cet Amour-Lá, aging literary lioness Marguerite Duras (Jeanne Moreau) finally agrees to meet 20-something fan Yann Andrea (Aymeric Demarigny), who's been writing letters to her every day for five years, and the pair bond instantly, inaugurating a complex, tumultuous relationship that lasts 16 years. The best thing about this elegant but elliptical biopic is legendary, septuagenarian French actress Moreau, playing a woman 10 years younger than herself and managing to make the character seem even younger: her Duras is a curmudgeonly but beautiful figure, prone to self-pitying speechifying about love and loss while deep in her cups (which is frequently). Moreau is remarkably compelling, making the noted author far more vital than her handsome but somewhat placid lover, played by Demarigny with all the depth of a male underwear model. Director Dayan glosses over Duras' work and fails to adequately chart the relationship's progression, but—ultimately—the film gains its strength not from the lucidity of its narrative so much as from the overpowering screen presence of its redoubtable star. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 14-minute “making-of” featurette, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a winning foreign film.] (E. Hulse)