Respond to these rapid questions in our French Exit quiz and we will tell you which French Exit character you are. Play it now.
In the winter, her wool coat with fur trim protects her from the elements while also serving as a stylish barrier between her and judgmental Manhattan society. Her ever-present cigarette serves as a sword, punctuating the many brittle witticisms that flit from her pillowy lips on a regular basis.
Michelle Pfeiffer takes on one of her most challenging roles to date as broke socialite Frances Price in “French Exit,” a role that capitalizes on her impossible beauty as well as her ability to maintain a lacerating detachment from the situation. Azazel Jacobs’ film, which is based on the novel by Patrick deWitt (who also wrote the screenplay), is a low-key, melancholy farce that serves as a showcase for the veteran actor’s vibrancy. Although the film as a whole becomes a little unwieldy as it fills out with supporting characters who are more like one-note ideas than actual people, Pfeiffer’s steely presence serves as a steadying force throughout the proceedings. This is made even more compelling by the fact that Frances eventually allows her flawless veneer to crack slightly, revealing a previously hidden vulnerability.
Prior to this, Jacobs and deWitt worked together on the 2011 film “Terri,” a dry comedy with a tender heart about a bullied adolescent. Viewers may find the self-consciousness in this scene off-putting because the tone is more arcane and the language more stylized than in other scenes. A sad, rich, white people movie, “French Exit” falls into one of my favorite film subgenres (it’s a Sad, Rich, White People Movie), but the characters are well aware of their predicament and eager to make witty observations about it. One point in the film when Frances’ future appears particularly bleak, she confides in her best and only friend, Joan (an absolutely stunning Susan Coyne), that she is well aware that she is an overused cliché, but she is fine with this because it somehow makes her timeless. Even though “French Exit” takes place in the present day, its characters appear to have been frozen in place a few decades ago, with their reliance on pay phones and postcards to make awkward attempts at human connection. Even when the characters leave for France, as the title suggests, they maintain a strong sense of place in this eccentric, literary version of New York.
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The film begins with Frances unexpectedly picking up her teenage son, Malcolm, from his leafy boarding school. The restless impulse drives the film from the beginning. “What do you want to do?” she asks, a conspiratorial glint in her eye and the tiniest smirk on her face. “What do you want to do?” she asks. “Would you like to come away with me?” We’re immediately drawn to her by her playful demeanor as well as her apparent disinterest in what other people think. Now fast forward a few years, and Malcolm (a bland Lucas Hedges) has transformed into a rambling twentysomething who has secretly proposed to his longtime girlfriend (Imogen Poots). Frances, who has been widowed for some time, is coming to terms with the harsh reality that she has spent all of the family’s vast wealth on herself. “We’re insolvent,” she tells her son, managing to squeeze four syllables out of the word as she sips wine and sharpens knives in the dimly lit kitchen by herself. She’s in such financial trouble that her $600 check to pay the housekeeper bounces.
French Exit Quiz
Frances, on the other hand, is fortunate in that Joan offers to let her and Malcolm stay in her vacant apartment in Paris, providing an escape from both the misery and the scrutiny she is subjected to. During a brunch of Bloody Marys at a posh restaurant, she assuages Frances’ fears that she will never get out of New York. We now have yet another movie in which Hedges plays an aimless young man who is accompanying an elderly female relative on a transatlantic journey, following Steven Soderbergh’s cruise comedy “Let Them All Talk.” Small Frank, the family’s black cat, is also accompanying them on their journey, and his intensity in his green-eyed stare suggests that he is acutely aware of everything that is going on around him. The great Tracy Letts, co-star of Jacobs’ “The Lovers,” who eventually provides the resonant voice of Small Frank, is sadly underutilized in this film as well. There was a possibility that this would have been a talking cat film from beginning to end, and I would have been completely fine with it; besides, the surreal nature of such a notion would have fit perfectly with the film’s increasingly screwball sensibility.
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When Frances and Malcolm arrive in Paris and fall into the same sort of dreary routine they had established at home, they are shocked when a widowed expat known only as Madame Reynard, who has never met them, invites them to dinner despite the fact that they have never met before. Valerie Mahaffey is a complete delight in the role, and her sweetly bubbly personality, as well as her sincere attempts at friendship, completely transform the film. Madame Reynard is a breath of fresh air in a film filled with characters who put on a front and play a role in order to keep genuine feelings at bay. Her warm humanity and emotional truth are a breath of fresh air in a film filled with characters who put on a front and play a role in order to keep genuine feelings at bay. “I’m… lonely,” she admits when Frances inquires as to why she invited them to her home, and her candor is heartbreaking to witness.
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However, as the Paris flat becomes increasingly crowded as a result of the arrival of zany supporting characters, “French Exit” begins to lose its way. In addition to getting lost, Small Frank ends up scurrying away from the apartment and slinking through the streets on his own. Not only do we have Danielle Macdonald, a fortune teller from the cruise ship who had a psychic connection with the cat, but we also have the private investigator Frances hires to track down the cat and bring him back to her (Isaach De Bankole). Susan eventually makes her way back into Malcolm’s life, this time with her attractive and vapid new boyfriend in tow (Daniel di Tomasso). Eventually, Joan returns to her apartment to check on her friend, completely unaware that her apartment has been transformed into a makeshift bed and breakfast. There are so many people crammed into this place that there isn’t enough room for any of them to develop into fully formed individuals, and they detract from the people we have grown to care about.
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However, there are glimmers of grace every now and then. Mahaffey continues to be a charmer. The bond that exists between Pfeiffer and Coyne appears to be deep and genuine. Jane Petrie’s costume design exudes a sense of timelessness and sophistication. Moreover, Pfeiffer’s performance only grows more evocative as her character begins to reveal the kindness that has been hidden beneath her cool, stylish exterior all this time.
For more personality quizzes check this: Lamb Of God The Concert Film Quiz.
