SOPHIE GOES TO TOWN IN A WELL-CUT GOWN...
FRENCH actress Sophie Marceau told me the secret of Gallic glamour is to keep it simple and ‘not overthink it’.
She said: ‘It’s not really a secret, but simplicity is the key.’ That, and a wellcut gown.
Ms Marceau (left) graced the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival for the world premiere of Francois Ozon’s film Everything Went Fine, in which she plays the daughter of a wealthy aesthete (Andre Dussollier) who, after suffering a stroke, asks her to help him end his life.
After seeing The Father, I have found it very difficult to sit through movies about death.
But Marceau, who has always been much more than 007 arm candy (opposite Pierce Brosnan in The World Is Not Enough) or the token femme in action films (Mel Gibson’s Braveheart) finds touches of humour in the sadness, with the help of some gentle coaxing from Ozon.
She and her co-stars Dussollier and Geraldine Pailhas (who plays her sister) allow welcome shafts of light to permeate the darkness — so much so that I laughed out loud a few times at some of the tart exchanges between the family members.
Oh, and there’s a scenestealing moment when Charlotte Rampling, playing the estranged wife, visits her husband in hospital. Her lip curls as she mutters scornfully ‘your father doesn’t look that ill’. Within the context of the film, that tells you all you need to know about that relationship.
It was lovely to see festival favourites such as Isabelle Huppert and Diane Kruger supporting a French film that speaks a language we all understand when it comes to frank honesty and common sense.