The Big Picture is a well-cast, well-produced film from director Eric Lartigau. It's promoted as a thriller in the Patricia Highsmith/Ripley vein, but aficionados of that genre might take issue on that point, after viewing the disappointing and frankly quite unbelievable story that is unfurled onscreen.
The acting is first class. Romain Duris does a fine job portraying a multi-skilled French lawyer who we end up discovering has an abundance of talents, but seemingly not a lot of common sense. It's also great to see Catherine Deneuve again, though in a small, fairly unimportant role, that could have just about been handled by anyone.
The idea I'm sure was to create a thriller with existential dramatic layers, a la Miichelangelo Antonioni, but we end up being force-fed so many contrivances, that everything becomes plainly inconceivable.
Let's quickly bypass the obvious sort of stuff such as why wouldn't the very successful Paul and Sarah just divorce, whereby Paul would still be able to see his beloved kids and legally be rid of the adulterous and failed writer Sarah, who as he points out, simply doesn't seem to appreciate him. So purely for purposes of story-making, we have Paul confronting Sarah's lover Greg, who is then accidentally killed, but definitely not murdered, of which lawyer Paul should very much have been aware. Nevertheless, then we are asked to accept that he would run from the authorities, adopt Greg's identity of a reasonably successful, professional photographer, simply because he didn't want to upset his kids. (Oh please!) Along the way he becomes adept with explosives, by building a bomb using instructions from the internet (as we all do) and it is inferred, though we never see it (saving on production budgets?), that he blows his old identity away, as well as Greg's corpse, on his father's boat.
Moving to another unnamed European country (near Belgrade we are told) he becomes very successful in his new life, though again we are asked to expediently believe there are no images of the former Greg on the internet, though there are pictures of his work and I think it is briefly suggested onscreen that Greg had a sister, another avenue of possible interest that isn't explored. "Fearing" further exposure again, he pays for a berth on a dodgy freighter ( Why not just take a bus?) where he rather stupidly exposes himself after witnessing the crew (wait for it) ... throwing stowaways overboard (as dodgy freighter crews always do), but not before hiding away a roll of evidentiary photos! He and another stowaway in the middle of the night, swimming in the middle of the ocean, then happen upon a survival raft, just floating around out there!! I think it is suggested that another crew member may have thrown it to them from the ship, but again, it would have only taken a few seconds to actually confirm this, rather than opaquely hint at the action.
Later onshore, after being rescued (offscreen again) we surmise that like a dog continually chasing his tail, publicity-shy Greg/Paul is going to hightail it again, after his photos at sea, prove to be a well-paying media sensation. Cue the credits.
Narratives created in such an artificial, unrealistic fashion as The Big Picture, find minimal favour with this writer, though I admit the film has its attractions, some of which are listed above. Some of the issues may have been alleviated by setting the story pre-internet technologies. What does surprise me is how critically well-received this hollow concoction apparently was. Unsurprisingly, I can't similarly endorse it.
The acting is first class. Romain Duris does a fine job portraying a multi-skilled French lawyer who we end up discovering has an abundance of talents, but seemingly not a lot of common sense. It's also great to see Catherine Deneuve again, though in a small, fairly unimportant role, that could have just about been handled by anyone.
The idea I'm sure was to create a thriller with existential dramatic layers, a la Miichelangelo Antonioni, but we end up being force-fed so many contrivances, that everything becomes plainly inconceivable.
Let's quickly bypass the obvious sort of stuff such as why wouldn't the very successful Paul and Sarah just divorce, whereby Paul would still be able to see his beloved kids and legally be rid of the adulterous and failed writer Sarah, who as he points out, simply doesn't seem to appreciate him. So purely for purposes of story-making, we have Paul confronting Sarah's lover Greg, who is then accidentally killed, but definitely not murdered, of which lawyer Paul should very much have been aware. Nevertheless, then we are asked to accept that he would run from the authorities, adopt Greg's identity of a reasonably successful, professional photographer, simply because he didn't want to upset his kids. (Oh please!) Along the way he becomes adept with explosives, by building a bomb using instructions from the internet (as we all do) and it is inferred, though we never see it (saving on production budgets?), that he blows his old identity away, as well as Greg's corpse, on his father's boat.
Moving to another unnamed European country (near Belgrade we are told) he becomes very successful in his new life, though again we are asked to expediently believe there are no images of the former Greg on the internet, though there are pictures of his work and I think it is briefly suggested onscreen that Greg had a sister, another avenue of possible interest that isn't explored. "Fearing" further exposure again, he pays for a berth on a dodgy freighter ( Why not just take a bus?) where he rather stupidly exposes himself after witnessing the crew (wait for it) ... throwing stowaways overboard (as dodgy freighter crews always do), but not before hiding away a roll of evidentiary photos! He and another stowaway in the middle of the night, swimming in the middle of the ocean, then happen upon a survival raft, just floating around out there!! I think it is suggested that another crew member may have thrown it to them from the ship, but again, it would have only taken a few seconds to actually confirm this, rather than opaquely hint at the action.
Later onshore, after being rescued (offscreen again) we surmise that like a dog continually chasing his tail, publicity-shy Greg/Paul is going to hightail it again, after his photos at sea, prove to be a well-paying media sensation. Cue the credits.
Narratives created in such an artificial, unrealistic fashion as The Big Picture, find minimal favour with this writer, though I admit the film has its attractions, some of which are listed above. Some of the issues may have been alleviated by setting the story pre-internet technologies. What does surprise me is how critically well-received this hollow concoction apparently was. Unsurprisingly, I can't similarly endorse it.