Cast: Juliette Binoche, Jean Reno
Director: Daniele Thompson
Producer: Alain Sarde
Screenplay: Daniele Thompson, Christopher Thompson
Cinematography: Patrick Blossier
Music: Eric Serra
U.S. Distributor: Miramax Films
In French with subtitles
Jet Lag is a talky French romantic comedy that fails to trade in on the innate charisma of its two leads, Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno. This may have something to do with the fact that, in order to facilitate her approach of initial dislike turning to love, director/co-writer Daniele Thompson has forced Binoche and Reno to essay two of the least engaging characters to fall for each other in recent movie memory. Like fungus, their appeal slowly grows, but it takes more than half of the short movie's 81-minute running time before we see either Rose (Binoche) or Felix (Reno) as anything more than a self-centered whiner.
The premise is simple enough, and leads to a lot more talk than action. Rose is a beautician who is fleeing an abusive boyfriend by accepting a job in Acapulco. Felix is a burnt-out ex-chef who is simultaneously trying to resurrect a dead relationship with a former girlfriend while working out business deals for a new line of frozen foods. The two meet when they're both victims of delayed flights at Charles de Gaul airport in Paris. Rose asks to borrow Felix's cell phone (in one of several annoying contrivances, she has accidentally flushed hers down a toilet). He hands it over, but is clearly annoyed that someone would have the temerity to invade his privacy. This begins a series of prickly encounters that end up with Rose and Felix sharing a hotel room. Their discovery that they have a lot in common (both are unlucky in love and dissatisfied with their current state of life) fuels an unexpected turn in their brief-but-intense relationship.
On a superficial level, there are similarities between Jet Lag and the Richard Linklater romance Before Sunrise: two people meet and fall in love over the course of 24 hours while spending most of that time talking. However, while the Linklater movie was a romantic treat (and arguably the best date movie of all time for thinking lovers), Jet Lag seems as stuck in one place as its characters. The dialogue is uninteresting and uninspired. The transition from disdain to amour comes too quickly, making it seem forced. And the happy ending (a bittersweet one would have worked better) seems to have been grafted on as an afterthought.
Jet Lag does have its share of positive points. Binoche and Reno are good enough actors that, even though the script often lets them down, they are able to give us characters, not caricatures. And, at least once Rose and Felix have started to open up to one another, they develop a degree of romantic chemistry. The movie is also quietly amusing in the way it observes how cell phone technology has transformed peoples' lives. Where a flight delay was once a source of endless frustration, it has now become an opportunity to hold another conference call.
Jet Lag externalizes Rose's internal transformation. When the movie starts, she looks like a clown, with buckets of spray holding her hair in place and makeup caking her features. Her appearance is grotesque, not beautiful, but she can't see it. "Without my makeup," she confesses, "I feel naked." Later, after taking a shower, removing the makeup, and letting down her hair, Rose becomes a more relaxed and vulnerable person. At that point, she begins to work as a character. Unfortunately, this happens about halfway through the proceedings. (Felix, on the other hand, undergoes no physical changes - he's the same scruffy, bedraggled individual at the end as he is at the beginning.)
Jet Lag is a mediocre romantic comedy, not a bad one. It has the virtue of being aimed at adults - something that is increasingly rare when it comes to movies about people falling in love - but all the pieces are not in place, and Thompson makes the critical mistake equating lots of talking with meaningful dialogue. Unlike her countryman, Eric Rohmer, Thompson hasn't figured out how to make the words convey emotion, rather than merely italicize it. There's a subtle difference, and that's the reason why Jet Lag doesn't satisfy the way Rohmer's equally dialogue-centric films do. For those who have a penchant for talky subtitled romantic comedies, this one has its charms, but is probably more worth seeking out once it's on video than during its (probably short) theatrical life.
© 2003 James Berardinelli