Papa Mike's Video #29: Francois Truffaut's A GORGEOUS KID LIKE ME (1972)

(In a reverse of the usual for this series, this is actually a title - via Region 4 DVD which is the only way I could get it 2nd hand online - that will be a holiday gift as opposed to titles that I borrow to watch and review)

The wonderful Bernadette Lafont definitely gets to go BIG here, and probably it's a more accentuated, dialed to 11 register than we may be used to seeing from Truffaut performers. But this "girl" Camille Bliss (even Frank Miller wouldn't think to name a character that in his pulp fiction) is a human hurricane with the kind of personality that draws in hapless dopes like Clovis and Arthur (Mr Exterminator Man) and a 2nd-rate crooner named Sam Goldin (meant to be a play on Sam Goldwyn I wonder, probably just a coincidence), among others.

While Dussollier and Kreis are the newcomers (Truffaut plucked them both from film school, and they have to carry a lot here and she as Helene manages to be the anchor to reality the narrative needs and does it convincingly), Denner, Marchand and Leotard have been seen in films before and were in films after, and they also manage to find the registers for their respective dummy egocentric just sometimes weirdo men who either think they've lucked into something amazing with Camille, or they (or really just Clovis) go to mad-man things like taking a gun and shooting this way and that.

This leads to a conclusion that is rather bleak and probably cynical, but I can't carp. A Gorgeous Girl Like Me is Truffaut in a tone and pace that is black-acidic comedy, where it's all about a human telling someone else (here it being the opposite sex is a factor for sure, women-male power dynamics et al) how terrible they are and the other person being like "oh, fascinating, tell me more - for Sociology!" 

At the same time what's strong about the movie is also the thing that one can't help but criticize - it's all so breakneck in its pace, whether it's Lafont talking without a breath to the gullible Dussollier or when she is running around from one place or one man in a room to another, that you want it to take a breather just fot a beat or two. And halfway through, I thought I'd have that criticism of Camille as well, like too one note as a black widow, albeit one who often gets these doofuses on a silver platter.

But by the end, once we find out what happens to Dussollier's Stan and how he gets double crossed, it makes sense why Truffaut (adapting from a book) and Lafont are playing it this way. And, I may not have stressed this enough in this review: this is funny, and the comedy hits like 85% of its targets (including a door gag that had me rolling).