Making Plans for Lena

Although the title of director Christophe Honoré's film about a troubled French family refers to the 1980s XTC song “Making Plans for Nigel,” Making Plans for Lena doesn't create nearly as articulate a statement about the folly of parental control. Newly divorced and jobless, aging beauty Lena (played with sufficient slowburning inner turmoil by Chiara Mastroianni) takes her kids and escapes the social whirl of Paris to live with her extended family in the French countryside, naively thinking that she'll leave her past behind. Predictably, Lena's attempts to flee fail miserably—especially since her passive-aggressive ex-hubby still has visiting rights. Lena receives no comfort from her family at home: her self-loathing sister is pregnant and hates her husband, while her parents spend their golden years fending off eternity with a grim sense of inevitability and escapist tourist outings. Unfortunately, Honoré's attempt to render Lena and her family's lives as dull and insipid is almost too successful for its own good. An optional purchase. (M. Sandlin)