Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Elisa (1994)

Director: Jean Becker

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

This vehicle for the gamine pop-star/actress Vanessa Paradis is by Jean Becker, a director who has done, and should know, better. Here, she prances her hot-panted way as an ex-children's home rebel who leaves her surrogate 'family' (Courau's fellow home-girl Solange, Sall's Arab sidekick Ahmed) to wreak emotional revenge for her mother's suicide on both her suburban grandparents and her 'real' father. The first half is a series of loosely linked scenes of posturing 'rebellion'. Older men figure strongly. She twists a late-middle-aged bookseller around her little finger, seduces an older man in the (mistaken) belief he may have been her mother's lover, and (at last!) tracks down her father, who turns out to be Depardieu. Thrown in, for good measure, is a bemusing scene with Léotard doing a Serge Gainsbourg impression at the piano as 'the Gitanes Smoker'. The final sequence is more diverting. She finds Depardieu brawling and boozing among the matelots in a port-side bistro, and strips for him on the sands before slowly realising that redemption is a game two must play.

Author: WH 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Jean Becker

Producer: Henri Brichetti

Cast: Vanessa Paradis, Gérard Depardieu, Clothilde Courau, Sekkou Sall, Florence Thomassin, Michel Bouquet, Philippe Léotard, Catherine Rouvel full cast

Duration: 114 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.