Review: Bowling - Montreal Gazette

Bowling

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Starring: Catherine Frot, Laurence Arn?, Firmine Richard, Mathilde Seigner

Directed by: Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar

Running time: 90 minutes

Parental guidance: for all

Opens Friday, April 26 in French at: Beaubien and Quartier Latin cinemas

MONTREAL - I don?t go to French films for Hollywood-style entertainment en fran?ais. If I want the usual American movie formulas, I?ll get to the original source, thank you very much.

I make the detour to see films from France when I?m in the mood for smart, usually pretty chatty films about real-life people. The perfect example is prolific auteur Fran?ois Ozon?s fascinating Dans la maison, which opened last week. It?s a super intriguing look at the process of literary creation, anchored by fine performances from fine actors, most notably the absurdly talented Fabrice Luchini.

Catherine Frot is also absurdly talented, but sadly her latest vehicle, Bowling, is a rather tired riff on the kind of inspirational comedies you?ve seen a million times from Hollywood (and from most every country, when you get right down to it).

Frot was great in the recent French flick Les saveurs du Palais, playing a provincial chef brought in to cook up dinners for then-president Fran?ois Mitterand. She was perfect (and perfectly cast) as a woman who would speak her mind to anyone and who was happy to sit down and have a nice chat with the president.

But she?s miscast in Bowling. She plays Catherine, a prissy bureaucrat from Paris who?s sent to a hospital in Brittany to make it more efficient (read: cut costs) ? more specifically, to shut down the maternity ward. Naturally, she?s met with much resistance from the staff at the hospital, notably from the maternity-ward veterans Mathilde (Mathilde Seigner) and feisty Firmine (Firmine Richard). Before you know it, there?s a major protest afoot.

There?s also some major bowling to be done, since Mathilde, Firmine and their pal Louise (Laurence Arn?) are part of a bowling team competing in a local championship. Of course, for comic and dramatic fodder, Catherine joins the team, even though she?s just about the most unlikely bowler.

There are lots of fairly lame jokes along the way, including that old standby, the hapless female driver taking lessons (in what year was this screenplay written?), and the usual comic riffs on the differences between folks from the big city and the proud provincial region.

Frot is good just because she?s always good ? though we don?t buy for a second that she?s a faceless bureaucrat ? and Seigner, Richard and Arn? all bring tremendous charisma to the screen. But inspired it ain?t. Watching the bowling sequences, it?s hard not to think of that greatest of bowling films, The Big Lebowski. Let?s just say it?s not a comparison that?ll make you feel any more upbeat about this movie.

Did I mention the cheesy musical sequences with the gals singing and dancing to tunes like It?s Raining Men? No? Well, I?m mentioning them now. Enough said.

bkelly@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @brendanshowbiz

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Movie+review+Derivative+Bowling+ball+rolling/8294644/story.html

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