Pourquoi tu pleures? (2011)
Directed by Katia Lewkowicz

Film Review

Actress Katia Lewkowicz's directing debut is a humdrum affair that struggles to extricate itself from the morass of exhausted clichés that serve as the flimsiest of chassis for (yet) another round of pre-matrital mid-life crisis.  Singer-songwriter Benjamin Biolay has an uphill struggle trying to make his unsympathetic character remotely likable and most of his co-stars are similarly ill-used, mostly saddled in dull, stereotypical roles that leave little rooom for manoeuvre.  In record time, Nicole Garcia becomes unbelievably nauseating as a neurotic mother with a thin grip on reality and Valérie Donzelli is equally wasted in an even less convincing role.  The only member of the cast not to be totally tainted by the film's mediocrity is Emmanuelle Devos, whose every appearance in the film is appreciated, if not venerated, like scraps of food to a starving man.  Pourquoi tu pleures? does sparkle occasionally, and once in a while there is a gag that is worth waiting for,  but for the most part it is deadly morale-killer - a dreary retread of a drearily over-exploited theme that ends up exactly where you expect it to.  Lewkowicz's direction shows some promise, but her script is unforgivably trite and derivative.

Film Synopsis

Arnaud makes a habit of ducking difficult decisions but on the eve of his wedding he finds that he has no option but to grow up and overcome his chronic indecisiveness. He had thought that getting married to the girl he loved would be the easiest thing in the world.  Far from it.  His fiancée Anna apparently has her own doubts about the whole thing and has gone missing.  His future in-laws are on his back constantly, speaking to him in a language he cannot understand.  And if the wedding preparations are not enough to tax his sanity, trying to get the work completed on the building site that is supposed to be his new home looks like mission flaming impossible.  Suddenly falling in love with Léa was definitely not one of his plans, but when this happens Arnaud faces the most difficult decision in his life as he reflects on the looming disaster of his wedding: to cancel or not to cancel...