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twbb, it's interesting that you felt Poupaud's character was the point of identification – for me, the only character remotely of interest was Camille, his mother-in-law, who I felt could have emerged from a decent Rohmer film. When she begins to investigate, I started to feel engaged by the film for the first time ... until the film's climax erased much of the good will I was developing towards it.

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I don't mind Poupaud being accidentally shot, and that is fairly satisfyingly handled, but the development of the scheme, among other things, came across as pretty stupid and implausible to me. Why would a seasoned hitman agree to take the rap for a fatal shooting, thus being the subject of an inevitable police investigation, instead of employing a middleman? Sure, this is a comedy and the scene where they discuss the plan is being played for laughs, but it just felt like a lazy shortcut in the screenplay.

In contrast, the central romance/affair between Fanny and Jean in the first half of the film just felt terribly shallow and hard to care about. They talk a lot, but say absolutely nothing.

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For instance, how many times do we have to hear about Jean's high school crush on Fanny? We understand that she finds this flattering and sees it as an opportunity to experience something she missed out on, but it's practically all he talks about!

If I had as much confidence in Allen's artistic abilities, I might also conclude that he's doing something interesting and paradoxical with the characters and the seemingly superficial dialogue, but I really think that's giving his writing too much credit. To my eye, the entire film felt less effortless, more low-effort, and if this is Allen's last film then it's a disappointing note to end on. At this stage of his career, I think he's been far better suited to screwball (e.g. A Rainy Day in New York) than black comedy or crime thriller. But then, Match Point – the more straight-faced counterpart to Coup de Chance – never did anything for me either, and I know a lot of people love that, so maybe there's something I'm missing!

nicolas - English subs showed up on back channels. I doubt Allen would request that - I don't think he cares much and he's always been a champion of non-English cinema and Americans exposing themselves to art in other cultures. I'd formulate that it was probably the distributors who wanted it to reach a wider audience, especially if they believe Allen's audience is widely English-as-first-language, which would be fair, and likely a good business move. But who knows!

furbicide - You're reading of the film is fair, and the one I had until the final moments. I actually still share a few of your dismays, which I hope I communicated effectively (i.e. the central romance's vapidity - even if it's the point to simplify and just go with feeling, I wasn't invested in it - I'd really like to hear from someone who was, though, because I can't imagine anyone being invested by such a short, empty thing, and I want to read that defense!)

I should probably give a brief explanation of how I consumed this film, because it may have impacted my impressions. I watched the first half mid-week, didn't make time to finish it until last night and then I watched right up until the scene I found so wonderful, that you didn't like at all. After musing over where this was obviously going, how predictable it was, how shallow - if feathery and cute - the central romance was, how familiar and mute certain characters were that should or would be 'more' in another Allen movie... I still thought it was 'fine', but then I tapped back in at the exact right moment to laugh and meditate on the great in-joke. The implausibility that irritated you absolutely delighted me, because it was the punchline of

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Poupaud's Self-Made Powerful Winner's ironic existence

What you saw as a lazy shortcut, I saw as a lampoon of these kinds of movies and a marginal comment on the folly of humanity in egocentric, controlling mode, oblivious to the possibility that they could have blind spots. That lack of consideration is the blind spot to all-caps, neon-lit LIFE that Allen has adjusted to. I think that's been reflective since at least Magic in the Moonlight onwards in the way he's doing it (conflating love and spirituality together).

I'm freely admitting to giving Allen a bit more credit than his film may deserve on its own here (what's that line about the reader doing more work than the artist, again, to "get" the point?), but hey, that's what I do! It's what I find most interesting to do with auteurs whose filmographies I've seen in total, or in Allen's case, grew up on, and have revisited every one of his films at least once - save the last two - and most of them many, many times. It's easy to say that a movie is too weak here or too overdone there, and I've rarely if ever felt the stimulation I get from writing while listing off what didn't work. That can sometimes lead to me drafting recontextualized appreciations or aggressively go after a movie for unconsciously supporting the opposite of the theme it's trying to express, but this is almost always true: Where I wind up at the end of a writeup is rarely what I'm even considering at the beginning!

I like how you connected the mother to a Rohmer character, though that comment immediately made me think of how her brief investigations were framed with an almost 'Rivette' aesthetic, though of course we know everything so the vibe of ominous but exciting mystery wasn't there. I, too, wish she had more to do, but she's also who I'm talking about when I complain about motivations and temperaments changing.

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She makes some drastic proclamations in favor of ignorance before doing the opposite, then makes extreme charges and essentially 'forgets' about them to go on vacation - and hunting! - with the guy you think may have murdered someone the other day.. what!

So yeah, I totally found a way in with Poupaud, but taking time to reflect on the film between three viewings of parts helped me pay more attention to where Allen was directing his attention. It's funny because he's usually more transparent about -maybe not the points of identification- but the characters he's most invested in. Here it's weird: he's allowing the characters he shares virtues with to dissipate from his narrative, while the remaining rocks in the ripped sack weighing Allen into the waters of atheism are what I think he's targeting broadly with the project. But the oft-elided protagonists' spirits are, I think, supposed to remain and exist as a promise of what life can be if we don't become Poupaud. And that's not reflected effectively.

Oh yeah, re: your second spoilered passage – I totally forgot about it when writing the above, but that drove me nuts too!

I appreciate your approach here, even if I’m less inclined to your interpretation of the “punchline” (which I read in a slightly more obvious sense, e.g. that you can try to plan and control as much as you like but chance will have its way with you). As you suggest, I do tend to think that more is to be gained generally from approaching films and filmmakers’ intentions openly and generously rather than assuming laziness or ineptitude – at worst, we find things that aren’t there and develop an interesting possible reading; at best, we notice something that others may have missed and appreciate the film on a deeper level than we otherwise would.

Yeah, at the end of the day I'm less trying to convince others of my interpretation than spitball (I believe we are often collaborating, even if we disagree completely on something in discourse) to concoct an interpretation that I like that I can convince myself of, or at least of being worthy of consideration. Obviously you need some space between yourself and the work so as not to get 'blended' with an interpretation, myopic and impossible to be challenged, like... Poupaud? But I've learned to appreciate some films, even while actively disliking most elements of them, as interesting failures or such due to this approach, and then there are times where I'll turn around and diminish the value of a film I once liked because such an approach might reveal shamefully ignorant behavior and problematic didacticism twisted away from its intent - though still in those cases, I'm so excited to just be critically thinking about a piece of art in a novel way.

I was just reading that New Yorker article on Scott Frank after finishing this today, and couldn't help but think about the Billy Wilder advice of 'if there are problems with your third act, you need to fix the first' or something like that, as well as the discipline of creating character to inform narrative and plot. Allen does a lot of weird things with this movie. The first act is exactly like every other Woody Allen movie, and so are the others actually... But, I think the third act is what elevates the movie from invisible to defined, and it wasn't based on creating character at the start. It's through the reveal of the character at the end and what the film has to say about the first act in contrast that makes that beginning's aimless, vapid but sublime energy have both purpose within the script and meaning beyond it into life. I dunno, maybe I will rewatch this one after all. I get the feeling that if I choose to look at it this way, and particularly study any screenwriting-switcheroo thematic payoffs, I may wind up finding a whole lot more value here than I did before we began our back-and-forth. Hey, there you go!

All that said, I wouldn't fault a soul for disliking this for the exact reasons we've mentioned, and I'll be pretty surprised if anyone winds up going to bat for it harder. I'd love to see that though -as I can't conceive an angle that could even gesture at True Greatness. Sometimes we feel like trying harder than the art does to make meaning out of it, and sometimes we don't, and either is fine.

I always wonder things such as.. how the above reviews of Coup de Chance would differ if the film was by, say, a new female director who no one had heard of. Is there too much baggage in having such a career that it weighs too heavily on how everyone responds to your work? (in both good and bad ways)

No, I think most people will watch this and shrug with mild delight or mild annoyance. I just personally enjoy mining the riches in that way for artists I've followed throughout my entire life. It seems fitting, to grow alongside someone even from afar as strangers, and then review their work based on that concurrent evolution. But really, I just started writing some rough thoughts and it turned into something I had no idea it would be at the start. That's just the fun of writing for me, but I don't expect anyone else to generate some complex thinkpiece on what this 'says' about Allen. There have been far too many recent gems that scream much more obviously to analyze against Allen's own previously-stated spiritual predilections, and nobody really has taken the time, outside of some folks here

Something that's always been so attractive about Allen is how open and self-critical he is, in a constructive way. It's attractive to be able to laugh at yourself, to humble oneself to acknowledge that I might mean my convictions, but who the fuck am I to tell you anything about the great mystery, or how to live life, when I'm so self-conscious and confused myself? And while a filmmaker like Godard may have reached the zenith of transparency around his own relationship between personal and artistic evolution, so we absolutely can and should look at his work in reference to each other to extract further meaning from it, Allen is very private about what his films mean in interviews, etc. But I think he reveals a lot of what he's going through, and where he's arrived at 'for now' throughout his work. He's always been able to laugh at himself, but over the last ten or so years, it's been different, carrying an extra coating of profundity. Nothing may beat the self-evisceration of Irrational Man, or the wonderful revelation that conflating spirituality and love can work on infinite levels in Magic in the Moonlight, but I think it's apparent in most works since that he's just getting deeper. At least until the last two, but maybe he doesn't need Joaquin Phoenix to hammer down that point so aggressively anymore. He may just want to chill in France and weave baskets and poke fun a little here and there

relaxok wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2024 12:59 am I always wonder things such as.. how the above reviews of Coup de Chance would differ if the film was by, say, a new female director who no one had heard of. Is there too much baggage in having such a career that it weighs too heavily on how everyone responds to your work? (in both good and bad ways)

My feeling is that it's more the other way around, i.e. Allen tends to get treated with kid gloves in some circles because of his reputation and people's affection for his earlier work. I don't think this film would be at all better reviewed if it had been made by, say, Mia Hansen-Løve (trying to think of someone who does vaguely similar work) or someone making their debut. To be honest, it's hard for me to imagine it even getting widely distributed or shown at any major festivals to begin with if it were the latter.

Of course Allen nowadays has plenty of haters, too, who make a sport of denouncing him and his work regardless of the quality of his films – but I'm guessing most of those wouldn't have bothered to see this film in the first place.

Coup de chance coming to US Blu-ray from MPI in May

domino harvey wrote: Thu Mar 14, 2024 11:45 pm Coup de chance coming to US Blu-ray from MPI in May

There's also amazingly an Italian UHD(?!) of this, though no English subs

furbicide wrote: Sun Jan 28, 2024 1:07 am

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I don't mind Poupaud being accidentally shot, and that is fairly satisfyingly handled, but the development of the scheme, among other things, came across as pretty stupid and implausible to me. Why would a seasoned hitman agree to take the rap for a fatal shooting, thus being the subject of an inevitable police investigation, instead of employing a middleman? Sure, this is a comedy and the scene where they discuss the plan is being played for laughs, but it just felt like a lazy shortcut in the screenplay.

This is a fair complaint, but it didn't bother me for two reasons

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One, the henchman mentioned his brother had fled the country and he would be soon returning to join him, so I imagine he could take his plane and escape the cops anytime he wanted if they started to cast aspersions on his participation. And Two, a major theme of this film is that the rich (ie Poupaud) can do whatever they want to get their way, here by paying a poorer person to take care of their dirty work. And, barring the inevitable conclusion, they indeed likely still would have gotten away with it, even if the plan was so dumb!

On the whole, I thought this was fine. I'd rank it above Irrational Man and below the others from Allen's noir lite catalog. Certainly I'd rather Allen retire here now that Rifkin's Festival is no longer the one he goes out on, as I don't know that I trust him to even deliver another film on the level of "okay" such as this. I like Poupaud as an actor but he is allowed to go tres broad here-- and sometimes that even works! But man, it's pretty hammy most of the time. And as for whether this would be getting any discussion at all were it not for Allen's involvement... no, of course not. Like a lot of auteurs, half the filmography is only interesting in conversation with the other half that you really want to talk about. No guesses which half this one falls into, even if it is better than some others keeping it company!