The Girl on the Bridge

Vanessa Paradis brings out the fey side of older French male directors who should know better. Leconte has always been a sucker for a pretty curve, but he used to work around that with an idiosyncratic mix of flamboyant storytelling and a good nose for mischief making. What with its monochrome 'Scope photography and shake-a-limb camerawork, and the plot's magic-exotic conceits about knife throwing and telepathic love, here Leconte comes over all moonfaced romantic for a character who seems a wet rag even before she tries jumping in the Seine. Poor Adele, bad luck seems to follow her. Gabor (Auteil), who stops her jump, insists that her luck can change, and to prove it he throws knives at her, this being his stage act. They invest in some circus clothes, and ply their newfound luck around the Riviera. And because they're apparently psychic, they start wandering about talking to the ether like damn fools. Leconte too seems to be communing with himself, or some fantasy audience. The film has the precocious gloss of an advert, a similarly crass conception of human connection, and an utter lack of rhyme or reason.