A romantic comedy that lacks most of what the genre requires--witty dialogue, sparkling direction, star power--FRENCH EXIT is at least tolerable for its fetching musical score and sporadic insight into Hollywood egos running amok.
After meeting in a minor auto accident, established Hollywood screenwriter Davis Lake (Jonathan Silverman) and ambitious neophyte Zina Hart (Madchen Amick) find themselves in competition for a plum assignment, scripting a remake of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY for A-list producer Sam Stubin (Kurt Fuller).
Egged on by her roommate Alice Wetherby (Molly Hagen), who is Davis's ex-flame, Zina crashes Davis's power-lunch with Stubin. Because Stubin is infatuated with her, Zina becomes the front-runner for the job. Despite their career competition, Zina and Davis gradually become romantically involved.
When a children's film he wrote flops, a depressed Davis winds up in bed with Alice. Zina discovers Davis's infidelity, gets drunk, and decides to sleep with Stubin. An irate Davis breaks them up in the nick of time. Unable to reconcile his differences with Zina, Davis decides to move to
Manhattan. Changing his mind at LAX, Davis bumps his car into one driven by Zina, who has followed him to the terminal, and they resign themselves to a committed relationship.
A romantic comedy works on nuances. The writer-director must strike a universal note in relating how Cupid initially misfires his arrow. And the screenplay demands engaging repartee--wit is the major weapon in the comic battle of the sexes. On both counts, FRENCH EXIT comes up short. How do the
filmmakers expect us to care about two immature yuppies who are supposed to be talented writers, yet cannot even insult each other with any panache? All the viewer gets is slamming doors, gibes against Lotus Land, and the sinking sensation that the film's screenwriters spent their formative years
nestled in the hermetically sealed world of a film/TV studio; they appear to have no knowledge of anything else, including how nonindustry types behave. Because the characters have no interior lives, they become mouthpieces for this comedy's creative personnel, who are sadly unaware of their own
limitations as observers of human nature. (Extreme profanity, sexual situations, substance abuse.) leave a comment
