Andre Techine is something of a poster boy on the Academic-Pseud circuit and clearly they're going to love this in the Senior Common Room and the BFI Boardroom - expect an article in Sight and Sound any time soon. Clearly it has something very profound to say about something. What exactly? You tell me, naval lint. Very possibly. A middle-aged writer is looking for a quiet retreat; a female estate agent slightly younger (in real life Carole Bouquet is eleven years younger than Andre Dussollier) gives him details of a house a short distance from Venice. He says he'll take it providing she will go and live there with him. She agrees. I know but this is Techine, the darling of the pseuds. His married daughter, who has left her husband to take up with a deadbeat, violent druggie, leaving her own daughter with grandfather, subsequently drops out of sight. The estate agent, who swings both ways, recommends a former lover, ex-private detective, to search for the daughter. The tec is reluctant because she is worried about her low-life son, due out of prison imminently. There's more but do you honestly CARE. Naturally, being Techine he shoots the film on location around Venice but does nothing so crass as offer any 'touristy' scenes of Venice, best leave that to the real filmmakers like David Lean and Visconti, pseuds are above pandering to entertainment. I've given it five out of ten for Dussollier and Bouquet, who deserve something for enduring this drek. Luckily Dussollier went straight from this to work with a real artiste, Ann Fontaine and significantly the film they made together is called My Worst Nightmare.
Review of Unforgivable
