Customer Reviews

A Good Year (Widescreen)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A feel good movie. Good music, hilarious tennis scene, fun characters, beautiful scenery. Watch with the fireplace on and a good red wine!

The reviews for "A Good Year" are generally abysmal. I think I know why and shall try and explain. The pedigree really hurts the thing right off the bat. You hear Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe and you come to it with expectations. I mean, I know that they are both playing against type here, but still, you expect a little something more than what you get, which is basically a pleasant romantic comedy. I think that if the film had come to us with a no-name director and a different star, one might have settled into it more comfortably. And the reason for this is that it's a little goofy. Crowe is goofy. Scott does some goofy things behind the camera - slapstick stuff. And it throws you off (or did me) for the first 45 minutes, when I was still deciding whether everyone was right about this film.

But then I settled into it. I started enjoying the odd quirks and forgetting about my preconceptions. One of which is that some sort of transformation happens to Max which is completely unbelievable. Max doesn't change - he is always about having fun. It's just that initially he has fun through making money, and screwing over the other guy. We see these tendencies in him, even as a kid. So, I think it works - he doesn't go from being amoral to being a saint, as many seemed to think.

It's something that will get more enjoyable in subsequent viewings. It's actually kind of fast-paced, which possibly is what Ridley Scott brings more than anything. We don't spend a leisurely week in Provence. Things happen quickly, and it's not always easy to follow the subplots (the phantom wine, the love interests, the illegitimate daughter, the meaning behind the Uncle Henry/ Young Max flashbacks, etc). But for me, it all worked.

I guess it's one of those movies where I can understand WHY people didn't like it. For someone expecting "Gladiator", they are sure to be disappointed. For someone wanting "A Year in Provence" or "Under the Tuscan Sun" this will be a lot less pastoral than they might expect. But if you set those preconceptions aside, you might find that you really enjoy this week in Provence.

I very very very rarely like any kind of chickflick/romcom/girlie movie. But this one is definitely an exception. Beautiful cinematography, clever/witty script (without trying to overdo things), great soundtrack, well-acted (meaning neither over- nor underperformed) and it's just a fun little twist on your typical love story where boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy and girl hook up, must break up for heartwrenching reasons, but boy finds his way back to girl in the end. Basically this movie makes you want to slow down and appreciate life more. It actually does, as cheesy as it sounds. And very very very few movies actually achieve this.

I was disappointed. I had just finished reading the book and frankly the film did not live up to the book. I will not watch it again.

Who knew Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe could get together again and have not a single explosion in a movie yet craft a wondrous story? This is a simply delightful story that has a superb cast made all the better by the realistic portrayal of three very strong, yet supremely sexy, women in Crowe's life when he inherits his uncle's villa in Provence.

Crowe is brilliant as a lovable rogue and all his high-powered colleagues in London are all pitch perfect. Then the juxtaposition of life in southern France where he spent his youth and the memories those trigger is magical.

Marian Cotillard is beyond sexy and fiesty in her role as an extremely independent fireball of a woman that recall screen sirens of the '40s. Isabelle Candelier as the vinyner's wife is a bundle of focused energy who dances up a storm while doing the most mundane of household chores. While the longlost American daughter, Abbie Cornish, of the deceased uncle character (played with his usual aplomb by the great Albert Finney) who shows up at the villa doorstep is strongwilled without being shrill.

The entire story is made by the fact the characters were so well written and the story is not only poignant and funny but makes a point about how life should be lived...life should be F-U-N!

The extras are nothing special--commentary track, brief 2 min gabfest with Crowe and Scott and Crowe's band's videos.

Max, a banker (Russell Crowe), lives in London; he soon receives news that his uncle Henry (Albert Finney) died. So, Max inherits the winery in Southern France. He goes to France with the hopes of selling the winery, but what he will find, will make him hesitate.
Of course, he will meet two girls, one being the illegitimate daughter of Henry, and the other a local girl, Fanny Chenal (Marion Cotillard) with whom Max possibly will fall in love.

This movie certainly could have been better, however with a simple plot like this one, it is very doubtful.
What is expected happens, no twists there!
The acting is horrendous - except for Finney and Highmore (young Max). Crowe tends to be a little stuck-up at times, and Cotillard looks disgusted when Crowe and she kiss.
The viewer doesn't get to see much about wine, wineries. The sites shown of Southern France aren't enough to make the viewer visit the area.
The story is based on a book by Peter Mayle... and that, to me, says it all. Mayle = boredom. Therefore this movie couldn't have been a great one.

Watchable once... if you really want to. Otherwise, pass and move on to something more interesting and worthwhile.

Pair Gladiator director Ridley Scott together with his Academy Award winning Maximus, aka Russell Crowe and you would expect to come away with something with a little more bouquet than the sappy vinegar served up in this scenically pleasing, feel-good wannabe about a London bonds traders epiphany about love and life in the south of France. Sadly, even with the golden halcyon veneer of too many lazy Provencal afternoons, A Good Year fails to deliver the grapes; the revelational concoction of savoring little moments while discovering beautiful sun-kissed people amidst fields of Van Gogh blues and yellows gets lost in the structural miasma of a truly bad script. Scotts bucolic suggestion of home where Maximus of Gladiator repeatedly and lovingly fingers his growing grain in the Roman outreach of Iberia to the strains of Hans Zimmers hypnotic score relays more of the essence of Mayles original idea for A Good Year than the films entire 114 minute playing time.

Its not that Russell Crowe cant do romantic comedy; he certainly possesses the charm, talent and good looks, Although he seems highly suited for his Londonderry Gordon Gekko counterpart, he appears to have taken just a little too much Prozac for the idyllic south of France scenes where a spacey grin facilitates eternal contemplation of his early life with his life-lusty uncle (Albert Finney) spent on the familys vineyard The hodgepodge script ping-pongs back and forth as the adult Crowe, inheritor of his uncles estate, meanders towards the realization that a future life on the vineyard will far exceed one cutting peoples financial throats on the London exchange.

Whats painful about this film is that it tries too hard to come off as the intoxicating magical adventure that it was intended to be. It brags of an emotional depth of expression that it does not possess. Unlike other films that rely heavily on location to evoke a sense of timeless beauty----Under the Tuscan Sun comes to mind----A Good Year fails to embrace the audience, pull it in and keep it bedazzled. In romantic comedy, a degree of formula is expected, even desired, but there is nothing here that allows one to lose oneself in the panorama of delight that although advertised, does not exist on any level.

Bottom line? If you enjoy the chuck it all and buy a ramshackle farm in some remote and timeless corner of the world genre, you may be as tempted as I was to thoroughly fantasize for over two hours of doing just so. Dont. A picture book of Tuscany or Provence will far better evoke that sought for feeling.

Diana Faillace Von Behren
renofc@mindspring.com