Currently browsing the "Riviera" tag.

Priceless

The French make breezy little romantic comedies as easily as they do a good cup of coffee. Perhaps it is because it is a more romantic sensibility. Maybe it is just that the language sounds more romantic and the locations are so quaint. But I can enjoy absurd situations in a French film that I could never accept in an American movie. Case in point is Priceless, starring Audrey Tautou (Amelie, The Da Vinci Code) and Gad Elmaleh as Irène and Jean. Irène is a gold digger staying at a fancy hotel on the Riviera with her rich older boyfriend when she mistakes Jean, a bartender, for a young wealthy mark. He lets her believe he is rich but when her boyfriend catches on and leaves her, the jig is up. She goes looking for her next meal ticket only to be followed by the lovesick Jean. Irène returns his ardor with a vengeance, spending Jean’s every last Euro then walking out, leaving him with an enormous hotel bill that he cannot possibly pay.