"This truly bizarre film has a substantial reserve of goodwill to draw on: among its blue-chip cast are John Malkovich and Fanny Ardant, and it's also the final film of the Belgian star Emilie Dequenne, famous for winning the best actress award at Cannes for her nonprofessional debut in Rosetta in 1999, who sadly died of cancer in March at the age of 43."
"Malkovich plays a wealthy grieving widower called Andrew Blake, supposedly from England, who, to ease his broken heart, takes a job as a butler in a French chateau whose owner (Ardant) has fallen on hard times. It is a sentimental journey for him, as many years ago he first met his French wife, Diane, in the chateau's sumptuous grounds. Among the below-stairs gallery of wacky characters is grumpy but golden-hearted housekeeper Odile (played by Dequenne)."
"What makes this film such an ordeal to watch is Malkovich's amazing line-readings in French, in his laboriously slow and unmistakably American accent. He very rarely snaps out of the language, and it would have been fascinating and horrifying to hear him do an English accent. Be that as it may, audiences will learn to tense and flinch in advance as Malkovich opens his distinctively pursed lips and strangles French word after French word after French word:"
The film is a broad, baffling dramedy directed by bestselling French author Gilles Legardinier and adapted from his 2012 novel. John Malkovich stars as Andrew Blake, a wealthy grieving widower who becomes a butler at a struggling French chateau owned by Fanny Ardant. The role reconnects him to memories of his French wife Diane amid the chateau's eccentric staff, including housekeeper Odile, played by Emilie Dequenne in her final screen performance. Malkovich's laboriously slow, unmistakably American French lines create recurring discomfort for viewers. The film mixes sentimentality and farce, including a striking drag sequence, producing an awkward tonal blend.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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