Movie Review: French Exit

Michelle Pfeiffer shines in the quirky, new comedic drama French Exit. The film follows Frances Price (Pfeiffer), a widowed New York socialite who, along with son, moves to Paris after squandering what is left of her inheritance. Also accompanying them is the family cat, who may apparently be the reincarnated spirit of Frances’s deceased husband. Once in Paris, they connect with a variety of quirky individuals and eventually end up communicating with the husband/father via a séance and an otherworldly candle. All the while, Frances continues to liquidate her remaining funds towards making her “French exit.”

Along with Frances on her journey is her son, Lucas, played with detached amusement by Malcolm Price. When the film begins, Lucas is engaged to his longtime girlfriend Susan (Imogen Poots), but has no plans to inform his mother of the pending nuptials. This, of course, leads to Susan breaking off the engagement, much to the amazement of a clueless Lucas. In Paris, Lucas and Frances befriend Mme. Reynard (Valerie Mahaffey) and a detective (Daniel Di Tomasso) they have hired to locate a fortune teller named Madeleine (Danielle Macdonald) who has the ability to communicate with the spirit of the deceased husband/father.

Director Azazel Jacobs, whose last film, The Lovers (2017), told the story of a couple that rekindles their passion for each other amidst their own individual affairs, imbues the film with a sardonic quirkiness that feels on the precipice of becoming a Wes Anderson type piece, but never commits fully to the endeavor. Instead, the film is content with allowing Pfeiffer to carry the burden of the film. Luckily, she is completely able to do so and makes the entire outing time well spent. However, there is a niggling undercurrent that makes the somewhat bittersweet (well, perhaps more bitter than sweet) final coda of the film feel a little more depressing than the preceding may have hinted at everything ultimately leading to.

The bittersweet earnestness of the film, along with the connection eventually established between mother and son make French Exit a worthwhile endeavor. But it is Michell Pfeiffer who holds the entire project together and makes it easy to believe in her as the matriarch of this bizarre, yet endearing hodgepodge of a family.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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