Little White Lies

There is a long held tradition in films of a group of friends gathering together for an event and catching up on their lives. It usually involves the death of one member of the group.

Films about groups of friends gathering together will forever be associated and compared to 'The Big Chill'. While that is a good film, I much prefer the English version of 'Peter's Friends'. This film is similar to 'The Big Chill' in that these friends gather after one of the group is injured instead of dead. The problem is that this central point gets the film off to a bad start. It is quite selfish of the group to leave to go on holiday while their friend is lying heavily injured in the hospital. They reason their way out of the situation saying that their friend is so 'out of it' that he'd not know they were gone. It does however bring a sense of unease over the film as you loose some sympathy for the characters and the problems they are going though that we explore over the coarse of the film. The one interesting subplot involves one male character confessing his love for another male character. It makes for some good comedic moments and one excellent scene where they become trapped on a beached boat. But otherwise the other characters you don't really care for when they only care for themselves. There is also the fact that the film is much longer than it should be so the events drag on forever.

Marion Cotillard returns to her native France to make this film with her husband. She is usually a brilliant actress but is not given decent material here. Her character is thinly drawn and as mentioned you cannot feel sympathy for anyone in this group because of what they are doing. Francois Cluzet is very good as Max who is the object of desire for his friend. He plays the stress of his character really well which makes for some funny situations. The rest of the group is nothing special with each having a problem to deal with that while supposedly unveiling character traits just make them seem more selfish for leaving their friend alone.

A French attempt to make a friendship dramedy that fails with its basic premise. It would have been better if their friend had died at the beginning rather than become injured. Being too long does not help either.