three wild moments

UN MOMENT D'AGAREMENT (ONE WILD MOMENT)
-directed and written by claude berri
1977
BLAME IT ON RIO
-directed by stanley donen
1984
UN MOMENT D'AGAREMENT
-directed by jean-francois richet
2015
My favorite french film has always been 1977's "Un moment d'agarement", a tender, poignantly funny look at a middle-aged man having an affair with his best friend's under-aged daughter. The backdrop is a beach holiday for two men and their teenagers. Pierre (jean-pierre marielle - URANUS, THE DA VINCI CODE) regrets the affair as soon as it happens, and tries to extricate himself from her declarations of love while coping with his friend's insistence that he help find the mystery cad who used and abandoned his daughter. The film is a gentle but so, so real look at human desire and hypocrisy. Its only weakness is (of course) patriarchal double standards, as we see an enraged father try to control and deny his daughter's sexuality...but all that is profoundly offset by the incredible humanity agnes sorral (THE OGRE, I LOVE YOU) invests into her part. Berri refuses to moralize - the lovers face each other in the final scene, and as the credits roll the audience has no idea where they will go.
1984's "Blame It On Rio" is one of the few Hollywood adaptations to shine as brightly as the original, because they didn't even try to capture the same flavor, instead creating something much more akin to a bedroom comedy, which hilariously follows the father and his miserable accomplice as they chase the "unknown" lech. Donen found the perfect writers (charlie peters and larry gelbart) and perfect cast, led by michael caine (ZULU, THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL) and joseph bologna (MY FAVORITE YEAR, JERSEY GIRL). Valerie harper (RHODA, VALERIE) plays caine's estranged wife, and demi moore (G.I. JANE, BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO AMERICA) his daughter - you can take the opportunity to smile or cry as you see the beautiful breasts nature gave demi, which would soon be mutilated by the surgeon's knife. Caine has never been better, and michelle johnson (GUNG HO, DEATH BECOMES HER) is also perfect as the smitten teen.
Perfect, but...johnson was also a sexbomb who was eighteen playing sixteen, which de-toothed the humanity and poignancy of the original. Soulless Hollywood strikes again! Which brings us to the 2015 re-remake, back in the hands of the french. Sadly, you might be justified in wondering whether french cinema now sucks as much as the yank stuff. The film stars vincent cassel (IRREVERSIBLE, BLACK SWAN) and lola le lann, who are wonderful...but once again we have a sexbomb teen playing a younger part, and on top of that, vincent looks so much like a movie star that the combination hijacks any deeper meaning, as the audience ends up just wanting these unrelateably handsome people to fuck already. You're a fine actor, vincent - you couldn't have grown a beer belly maybe? The ending also feels too easy, as laurent's own teen-angsty daughter forgets her outrage, and louna's father forgives his friend...which one might chalk up to a more enlightened european sensibility IF we hadn't spent an hour watching the man boil with homicidal rage toward the "despoiler". It all feels like such an opportunity lost. Couldn't we have tossed the patriarchal, sexually self-loathing overtones out the window? With apologies to THE READER and TADPOLE (but not many, as that fifteen year-old was twenty-three), isn't it long past time for a movie about a non-tragic affair between a teenage male and an over-forty woman?
Anyway, the first two would make a delectable double feature. One of the funniest, sweetest connections is the lightning strike at the exact same moment in each film. Wonderful.