Antoine J. Bachmann
Warning: various spoilers here and there.The story: A (charismatic, good-looking) man in his mid-40s, is a partner in a "bad financial firm" which "cruelly" wants to force the companies it owns to perform their best, even if this includes de- localization - all this might be considered fine in the US or UK, but for mainstream socialist France, it is considered bad... ;-) He must drive to his daughter's wedding, and of course being a bad guy, he has never really paid much attention to her after he divorced his mother. He makes the trip with one of his daughter's ex-boyfriends, and says such "bad guy" things that the younger man prefers to walk. So the here is a really, really bad guy you see. Then his car breaks down. All he finds to rent, is an electric model "Zoe" by Renault (very heavy- handed product placement, though not so positive as autonomy proves a big issue). Then he picks up a (charismatic, cute) girl; she is immediately attracted to the guy, his looks, his charm. The fact that he has a daughter. That he cares about the planet enough to drive an electric car. So she has him drive her back to her parents'. Who find him charming of course. And the girl of course has a serious artsy job (she restores old paintings). Only problem, her father is the owner of a firm that the bad guy's financial firm, had put under pressure to de-localize. But he shuts up so as not to spoil the moment. Then he drives her for an interview for her dream job - and she gets it. And they celebrate. Then she discovers that he was the bad guy who put her father under pressure. So she leaves, and the bad guy decides to change. He leaves his financial firm and gives away his 50pc shares (not he does not sell them to his co-partner: he gives them away). In exchange for this gift he asks for a 20 year leniency to let the father's firm continue to operate in France. Also he goes to his daughter's wedding. He makes a great loving charming speech. He dances wonderfully with her. He is OK that she is already 4 months pregnant. He loves her Arab husband (early in the film he hated Arabs). In other words: he changes from super-bad, to super-good, pretty much all at once. He is so kind and loving and good and wonderful that it becomes almost worrying ;-) Then he drives back to the parents' house, explains that he has become a great guy, they buy it, he says that love made him do that, he asks the girl to marry him, she accepts.So: this is a fairytale of sorts. The main actors are charming, good-looking and all. The photography is often very beautiful, with perhaps a bit too much artsy posterized look a la Olympus, often overly saturated and overly warm colors. The story is not believable at all where the hero changes overnight from super-bad to super-good, but it remains a cute fairytale. And a cute feel good story.People who like cute feel good stories with good-looking main actors will be happy and say it's a 7. Intellectuals who like difficult don't feel good stories with tortured characters and ugly actors, will want to leave the room at once and say it's a 2.
