Movies into Film
Jet Lag
Directed by Danièle Thompson
France, 2003
Nothing to Declare
Few films declare their intentions so forthrightly as the French import Jet Lag. At the start, Juliette Binoche recalls how as a girl she skipped school to watch Roman Holiday, and how her parents scolded her not just for playing hooky, but for going to see “off-limits” American cinema—a shabby, dishonest art where “wars end” and “whores marry millionaires.” From girlhood on, Binoche pines in voice-over, she dreamed of “a whole day when my life would be like an American movie.” And then we get it: this airless soufflé of contrived situations and bickering strangers who become lovers. Just like in America.
I was willing to accept an air traffic controllers’ strike that strands Binoche and her co-star Jean Reno at Charles de Gaulle airport; however, when Binoche flushes her cell phone down the john and it’s meant to be a great laugh, I knew that Jet Lag would never rival Roman Holiday. Eventually, our cross-eyed couple hole up in the Hilton, psychoanalyzing each other over plates of terrine and jambon. (At least their diet is French.) The scene climaxes—if that’s the word—with Binoche getting doused in the face by Reno’s wayward vinaigrette bottle. I felt sorry for the actress; her beauty in The English Patient seems a distant memory, and she’s rouged up to resemble a clown. Fluff isn’t as easy as it may look. The genre requires an inner springiness, an ability to bounce back from comedic indignities. Binoche doesn’t have it. She’s no Audrey Hepburn in this role, and—forgive me for saying so—she’s no Julia Roberts either. - NPT
June 2003
© N.P. Thompson, 2004
npt [at] moviesintofilm [dot] com