For the first two-thirds, I thought
Coup de Chance was a solid if exceptionally unremarkable Woody Allen movie. While he retreads over familiar ideas, behavior, themes, genre and narrative skeletons, etc. across his oeuvre, I don't know if any of his crime-romances have felt this safely protected from creative singularity.
Rifkin's Festival, while certainly cringe-worthy in many respects, was at least somewhat risky in an admirable sense (and not just the homages, but the running joke of Shawn and Gershon's coupling is more inspired than just about anything in Allen's Russian Classics in France exercise, even if he seemed to go out of his way
not to capitalize on opportunities to nudge the audience into repeatedly gawking at the absurdism!)
This film is well-shot, acted, directed, and as usual, breezes by with Allen's stapled digestible tone, aided by the camera's sunny vibes of possibility and his own deft touch with words and humble focus on banal activity made interesting by simple, powerful emotion felt between two people. Yet.. every other of 'These Ones' pronounces its individuality in at least
some way, and I'm sorry but the language departure doesn't supply that spin. Allen can do this on autopilot, and although I never wanted this to be 'longer', shifts in perspective -or motivations surging and then become discarded- all come on a bit quick, and even the jealousy meditations feels truncated rather than either serious or funny - and I get the sense that a close-up on Poupaud's face during a pivotal scene, as he's thinking and not listening to a voice of reason,
is meant to signify one or the other. There is one wonderful bit of inspiration that throttles the narrative into the exact place it needs to be
which starts with the nonchalant, practically-finale-unveiling reveal just before the end: that Melvil Poupaud's number one crime guy (who he has ostensibly known for a long time, and used to bump off various people across decades as he built up his empire) doesn't know how to fire a gun.. And then Allen goes even further in showing the absurdity of both this reveal and the winky artifice Allen is enjoying laughing at (you can practically hear him giggling to himself as he wrote this bit, and everything else is so routine I genuinely wonder if he made the rest of the film around a shower thought like, 'oh shoot I never did this silly thing with my thugs last time') by a) having Poupaud revert to a friendly family check-in, discussing a now-suddenly-complex murder plan hand in hand with social niceties, and b) causing us to do a double-take on how he could possibly know this guy for his role as an enforcer -let alone, apparently consider him like family- without knowledge of basic skill level in that very-important-for-his-own-obsessive-success area of expertise... plus, why can't the guy learn to shoot a gun? Can someone else? This is a hasty plan - developed on emotion rather than tact - but Poupaud could never admit as much.
For a guy who represents the atheistic 'I make my own luck' mentality -the one Allen has slowly stopped identifying with and become increasingly repulsed by in his last ten years or so, from his movies at least- and against Allen's own now agnostic take on corporeal spirituality (aka unconditional, unprovoked or planned love), there's a nice dish of irony thrown in there: For someone so meticulous and obsessive and fussy, he really gets lazy and urgency is usurped by overconfidence in direct contrast to his own motto of 'putting in work, don't expect certain results', etc. And then, of course, bad luck is what kills him!
Perhaps this is what separates this film from the rest: That it continues his own evolution as he approaches the last act of his own life. We get the whole 'life is chance, so take advantage of miracles on earth' stuff, but then there's a coda message: "Don't dwell" which I read to not only mean "be more grateful," since it's already been covered. Allen is more interested in Poupaud's character for a reason. He's arguably the only actual "character" and yet he's not particularly interesting. He may actually be the
least interesting 'kind of person' in the ensemble. What an interesting creative choice - to overly simplify the interesting people
and completely drop the most interesting one from the narrative early on!
but that seems to be the point. Maybe we don't need to be "characters" in life. Just look what's in front of you before it's gone, don't overthink, just be and soak up life, sing kumbaya etc. I get the sense that Allen wishes he worried less and was grateful more during his life, but not in a self-critical or regretful manner necessarily (at least that't not how it translates into his art). That would be a waste of time, dwelling. Allen certainly has experience dwelling though - and perhaps he makes movies these days in part to inspire himself not to. That's certainly part of why I practice therapy and write and create and connect with others - to re-remind myself of the clarity that exists when I get outside of the caves of 'self'. Poupaud is all "self'd up" - consumed, unable to get out of his own way, rigid in his thinking in a fashion that's unproductive towards anything Allen values anymore.
A filtered sense of security is a false one - Allen's known
that for a while regarding certain ideologies and institutions - but maybe he's combining the type of person he's always loathed most (the kind who he'd fantasize about ripping apart in a movie theatre line, for example) with the qualities he sees in himself that he's never liked, and then sending that character into an arc of delusion that essentially renders the meaty love piece of the film vapid - because Poupaud is actually the central character and can't access it. I dunno, but almost everything I liked about this centered around that theme of luck and chance, and how taking advantage of opportunities in a true and inviting and collaborative sense looks more like 'letting go' than issuing more and more control to a situation. That's just fucking lonely, and ultimately absurd. I kinda wish the movie ended with the last two scenes reversed -
although it would be less optimistic (it's certainly the most 'sublime' exit he could take, if this winds up being a career cap), being reminded of the 'right' way to approach life and then being presented with the wrong way and its consequences, and the absurdism of it all: A life wasted, built on self-constructed false ideas, unwilling to truly open or give parts of oneself, or be teachable... and the mother's deadpan face, barely registering what happened.
But I guess that doesn't matter as much as the positives. I'm also less convinced that my theory is correct, since Allen is subtler about what he's doing there, though I think it's pretty obvious that the basics are there to demonstrate the clash between two polarities Allen can relate to - not that it's a novel statement since he's been doing this for his whole career, especially in the twilight years! I like to think that the absences I've discussed is Allen's way of 'letting go' further ("Giving it up to God" or whatever that means for you), leaving the characters he aligns with at this developmental stage to their own narratives outside of his films. He doesn't need to prod into their psyches or personalities too much because all that matters are the simplicities that he writes in their dialogue, clear as day. He 'gets' them now, maybe it's less interesting, or counterintuitive to the ethos, to make them more 'complex'. I like the idea of Allen surrendering his characters to a world outside, like a father sending kids off into a world on their own, confident they'll do well if they stick to the basics.
I had a good time watching this - not a great one - but a sleepily delightful one. I can't think of another filmmaker who creates movies that feel so effortless and inviting and comforting while I'm there. That counts for a lot.