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Friday Night

2003, Movie, NR, 86 mins

Friday Night: Review

FRIDAY NIGHT | VENDREDI SOIR
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Dreamy and slightly ominous, this very French story of the brief encounter between a lonely woman and a handsome stranger rejects histrionics, moralizing and shocking plot twists in favor of an elliptical, haunting reverie. It's a cold Friday evening in Paris, and Laure (Valerie Lemercier) has just finished packing. She's about to move in with her long-time boyfriend and is emotionally exhausted from the effort of sorting out the things she's going to keep from those that have no place in her new life. On her last night as a single woman, she sets out in her battered old car to have dinner with friends, not realizing that the city is in the grip of a transit strike and the streets are choked with traffic. Encouraged by a radio personality who exhorts Parisians to "be kind to each other" and offer stranded pedestrians a lift, Laure picks up the quietly rugged Jean (Vincent Lindon). Laure's dinner is cancelled and she and Jean find themselves side by side in her warm car, making awkward conversation and watching dozens of little dramas unfold outside as frustrated motorists quarrel, unleash pent-up emotions over their cell phones or just daydream in their vehicles. As an undeniable attraction grows between them, Laure is torn between throwing caution to the wind and heeding her fundamentally cautious instincts, which tell her to throw Jean out of the car and go home. In the wake of her spectacularly gory TROUBLE EVERY DAY (2002), veteran filmmaker Claire Denis returned to the more contemplative tone that characterizes most of her films. Based on a novel by Emmanuele Bernheim, who co-wrote Francois Ozon's seething UNDER THE SAND (2000) and SWIMMING POOL (2003), the film is simultaneously a matter-of-fact chronicle and an elusive reverie. Its tone owes less to Jean-Luc Godard's overtly political WEEKEND (1967) than David Cronenberg's sexually charged CRASH (1996), but Denis has a lighter touch than Cronenberg and her influence is evident in Lindon and Lemercier's nuanced body language and fleeting expressions. Dialogue is kept to a bare minimum, but the film's complex underlying sound mix — a subtle symphony of faintly heard voices and the muted sounds of cars — adds a haunting texture to what could have been the slightest of stories about a woman's ephemeral victory over emotional numbness. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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