Story is predictable, but Depardieu is memorable
Gérard Depardieu is really something else. Sure, he has phoned in performances here and there, which is only natural given the absurd number of movies France’s most famous actor has made. But, man, can this guy eat up the screen with almost crazy intensity.
Je n’ai rien oublié (Small World), this French-German film that opens Friday, is not a great movie. It’s a rather predictable psycho-drama, entertaining enough but hardly a life-changer. But it’s worth seeing just to watch M. Depardieu in action.
He plays Conrad, an old friend of the super-rich Senn family who is kind of their jack of all trades and is in theory supposed to be taking care of their vacation home. But he has a pretty bad case of Alzheimer’s and is no longer a reliable staffer.
In fact, most members of the family make it clear that they wish this troubled old codger would ride off into the sunset. That’s certainly the case with Thomas (Niels Arestrup), the patriarch of the wealthy clan who is inevitably irritated when his old pal Conrad shows up on the scene to disrupt various family get-togethers.
Thomas’s mother, Elvira (Françoise Fabian), is even less amused. Actually, this evil-looking character isn’t particularly amused by much of anything. The only member of the family who sympathizes with Conrad’s plight is Simone (Alexandra Maria Lara), the alluring young woman who has just married the heir to the Senn fortune, Philippe (Yannick Renier). Did I mention that Philippe is a complete cad? Of course he is.
Conrad is a bit of an idiot savant. But — since it’s the movies, not real life — you know that he’s going to turn out to know a lot more than we originally think. The cool conceit here is that he’s suffering from Alzheimer’s, but he remembers things no one else can recall (or wants to recall).
It’s not the most original of ideas, but as mentioned above, it works be- cause Depardieu is so captivating. He reminds me so much of Marlon Brando. Like the man who would be The Godfather, Depardieu finds a way to make even middling material surprisingly exciting.
There’s something in his eyes that just conveys remarkable intel- ligence and that sense of brilliance is quite extraordinary when combined with the brutish physical presence that’s so much a part of Depardieu’s screen presence. The rest of the cast fare pretty well, too, particularly Lara as Simone, Arestrup as Thomas and Nathalie Baye as the woman who can’t ever overcome her love for Conrad.
Come to think of it, any film that includes Depardieu and Baye is always worth a look.