After gushing with joy and with an almost permanent smile left on my face after THE ARTIST, I was not sure what to expect with my second feature of the night at the Paramount. Well, this thankfully short film left me a tad flat. Honestly, though, I'm not sure why the programmers thought an enigmatic and ambiguous art film could follow a classic-styled masterpiece and still expect to blow people away. This film especially plays out way too understated and brought many questions to mind, but didn't really develop the lead character well enough for me to empathize with him.
Ethan Hawke plays Tom Ricks, a socially awkward (the least of his issues) American author who travels to Paris to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Her protective mother prevents the two from spending much time together, so Ricks, desperate for work, reluctantly takes a job in an unusual and mysterious facility where he works the highly secure door. He also meets an odd, but alluring woman named Margit (Kristin Scott Thomas) with whom he begins a torrid affair. His everyday mysteries along with his sanity raise way too many questions, and by the "end" of the film, I lacked any real connection with his character to really care what it all means. Ethan Hawke offers a fine performance, but writer/director Pawel Pawilowski seems to do very little with the novel by Douglas Kennedy on which this film is based. I have not read Kennedy's book, but what I have read about it sounds much more thrilling and mysterious than this dull film version.
Mark Saldana
The Movie Doc
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