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Poupées russes, Les (2005)

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39 out of 55 people found the following comment useful :-
Don't hesitate, but let yourself be surprised by it., 19 juillet 2005

Author: Philip Van der Veken de Tessenderlo, Belgium

When I decided to watch this movie in the cinema with one of my friends, I didn't really know anything about it. All I knew about this film was what he told me. He said that it was directed by the man who made "L'Auberge espagnole", which he liked a lot, but he didn't think that this movie would be a sequel to that one and I believed him. If I had known that it was a sequel, I would probably not have given it a try, because in my opinion there are only few sequels worth a watch and when you haven't seen the first one, it's almost always impossible to know what exactly they are talking about. But despite what we thought, this was a sequel.

Even though I hadn't seen the first movie, I could easily understand the story. Xavier is about to celebrate his thirtieth birthday and he is on a turning point in his life. He's no longer a student, but he hasn't yet got a regular adult life either. He's single, works as a reporter and ghost writer instead of being a renowned novelist,... and to make things worse, his love life is a gigantic mess. He's afraid of not finding the right one, because all he has are unfinished romances and one night stands. When he finally finds a girl that he likes, he always believes that there is something better out there and not knowing when to stop looking for more, he is unable to keep them with him...

I really liked this movie a lot and I guess there is a very good explanation for it. When watching this movie I had the feeling that it was me they were talking about. I'm a bit too much like Xavier than what I sometimes would like to admit. I'm in my late twenties, haven't got a terrific job, I'm still single, sometimes don't feel ready for the steady adult life, but still want to enjoy my youth... Even the friends from all over Europe are the same since I've studied in a similar project. But even when you can't completely identify yourself with one of the characters, I believe there is something good in it for everyone. The story on itself is very well written and thanks to the different places never feels the same. They have filmed in Paris, Saint-Petersburg and London and those three cities and the situations that take place there are different enough to keep you interested from the beginning until the end. Next to the story, this movie also offers some very fine acting by all the actors, but what else can you expect from people like Audrey Tatou, Cécile de France,...

As a conclusion I would like to say that everybody who is about to turn thirty will probably like it, but even the others will find enough good and interesting things in this movie. There is some very intelligent humor, a lot of fine acting and a lack of too many romantic movie clichés to be found in it. And although I'm sure it will never become a very popular movie (there were only 12 people in the audience when I went to see it on a Sunday evening), I'm sure that those who will give it a try, will not regret it. I know I didn't, I even give this movie a 9/10. If I had seen the first movie and understood from the beginning what was going on, it might even have been a 10/10. This movie should be cherished by all.

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27 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
Totally awesome, 2 novembre 2005

Author: kakihara83 de Canada

Sometimes sequels try too hard. This one tried very hard. Useless to mention it didn't fail. I'm afraid I have to admit I enjoyed this one a lot more. I remember how bad I felt at the end of the ''Auberge Espagnole'' when Xavier was leaving Spain. I felt like I was there with them feeling every little second of this intense moment. So when I heard there was going to be a second one, I was very happy. However I never thought it was gonna be so good! This movie lasts more than two hours and it seemed to me like a 10 minutes ride. I wanted more!!! A lot more. I definitely want Cédric Klapisch to direct a third one as all the actors seemed to be interested in doing so. And this, is a major point that made this sequel so wonderful: the same actors come back to play the same characters. That's something we only have the chance to see once in a while. Right now I can think of Back to the Future and American Pie. Here, all the characters we liked in the ''Auberge Espagnole'' are back, but some have more screen time than others. But if I'm not mistaking, no one important is missing. So trust me, if you liked the first one, you'll have one hell of a good time with the ''Poupées Russes''! Highly recommended!!

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26 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
Pretty good 2nd one, 4 juillet 2005

Author: as20 de France

OK, i loved L'auberge Espagnole so my expectations were high. I didn't know what to expect even though after having read some of the reviews and opinions on here i knew i was in for some good 2 hours.

And it really was good. The good thing about it is that it's not a remake of the first one. While some will probably miss the whole mixing of nationalities, we can enjoy the fact that the characters are more developed, the story is in the continuity of the first one, and some references are made to L'auberge, but they seem natural.

The girls are beautiful,(Xavier is a really lucky guy), the English girl playing Wendy is even more beautiful than in the first one and the fact that we travel so much during this film is the cherry on the cake.

For a very good moment, go see this one.

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32 out of 48 people found the following comment useful :-
Thanks ( again) Monsieur K. !, 19 juin 2005

Author: kapipo-1 de Marseille, France

Hi there ! I saw Les Poupées Russes yesterday, and first of all : ouch ! my poor eyes were stricken by all these beautiful girls bursting the screen A.Tautou, C. De France, K. Reilly etc... OK let's stay cool and let's describe this movie. I'll do it short : it's about love ! love and what it means for us, mere humans, perpetually lost in the whirlwind of these damn feelings we made up... Humm i don't want to spoil the story, but let me tell you that when you come out the theaters, you'll understand why this movie's called " Russian dolls" ^^ Xavier's life is a mess, he is us ! us in front of life's dilemma : who to love and why... The Spooky band ( i just made that name up, don't bother searching )is back, even if certain characters do only figuration, sort of " i put this one too in the movie". Some scenes denote a very intelligent humour. Of course, the movie does not avoid "love-clichés", but they are quite rare and it deserves to have l"Auberge Espagnole" as a father. Voilà ! Merci encore mister Klapisch. I gave that movie a 10.

( Sorry for my poor English ^^)

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17 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
Different than part 1, and underrated., 23 septembre 2005

Author: sweetsour de Hungary

Like a lot of other people, I went to the cinema to watch part 2 of L'Auberge espagnole. That one was a light, fun movie. It had some meaningful thoughts in it, but overall it was pretty light. However I got something different. Part 2 is a lot deeper in my opinion. It's still entertaining, there are many funny parts. The plot develops quite slowly though, too slow for some people in fact. I'm not one of those, I liked the movie. If you're not against slower drama/romance, you'll probably appreciate it too. It has got artistic scenes, taking a step further in this aspect as well. Overall, it deals with how love works, and with the choices that young people have to make. Shall they chase new partners in order to find the perfect one, or rather settle down? All of this with a fresh, entertaining, and realistic approach - to think of it, I had a similar feeling after I had finished watching Sideways.

Oh I almost forgot - the music is amazing. And Kelly Reilly - you are so hot. A lot better looking than the girl who played the dream girl in fact. :)

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
life isn't a long quiet river, 15 décembre 2005

Author: dbdumonteil

So, here's one of the most anticipated movies of the year 2005 and the sequel to one of the biggest French hits in 2002: "l'Auberge Espagnole" which also acts as a commendable and valuable ambassador for French cinema abroad, "les Poupees Russes".

Lucid, the director Cédric Klapisch didn't opt for "l'Auberge Espagnole 2". Anyway one can't renew the Erasmus stay (which I am currently experiencing!) a second time. "Les Poupees Russes" has nothing in common with the corny sequels that Hollwood cinema has been cramming us for years. And as Francis Veber once said: "what is a sequel? It's generally a shoddy remake of the original movie". So Cédric Klapisch finds again his character of Xavier and undertook to tell his life in his early thirties. Five years after his experience as an Erasmus student in Spain, he is back. He had said in the first movie:"my life has always been a mess and will always be...". These words appear to be visionary. His life is far from satisfying him: he has become a writer but he has to pen biographies of celebrities and scenarios for mawkish sitcoms. His private life is hardly better: he struggles hard to find the perfect girl though his charismatic part. In short, it's a rather murky life and have a look at the cover of the film. It depicts Xavier who moves forward, with a puzzled air. He is surrounded by pretty girls. Which one is the the perfect one? And anyway, does the perfect girl exist? And why do we have to love just one girl and not several ones. These are some the questions that Klapisch raises and doesn't bring a definitive answer to them. It's up to the audience to think about them on account of Klapisch's piece of work.

If Klapisch had built "l'Auberge Espagnole" from start to finish with as a source, his memories of cinema student in New York and her sister's who lived one year in Spain with other European fellows under the same roof, here one has to look in Truffaut's filmography for his credentials, more specifically the Antoine Doinel saga. Truffaut had shot in a series of films, the evolution of his favorite hero in his professional and private life. With "les Poupees Russes", it seems that we also have this beginning of device with so far better results for I am not really a Truffaut devotee. Would Xavier be the Antoine Doinel of the 2000's? Anything goes... Klapisch has his own trademark to shot the life or rather the various difficulties of his main figure and one is happy to realize that his film writing still works wonders. "Les Poupees Russes" looks like a sequel of a little maladjusted play lets in which Xavier tries to order a life eventually beyond his control. These play lets encompass a great thickness in their writing and a visual richness, the whole with a dash of humor and nostalgia. Their chief force is honesty: a substantial number of situations rings true and it's highly likely that the viewer has already known some of the filmed circumstances. And there's always this typical feature from the director to make a trite situation a dense one.

One word about the cast: it's a topnotch one. Romain Duris shines in a part that was tailor-made for him. He has never been so good with Klapisch. All his European sidekicks are present with a special mention to Kelly Reilly and Kevin Bishop as William, the future married in a more subdued part than in "l'Auberge Espagnole". He has found a soul mate and matured in spite of an explosive apparition: "Hello Paris! Bonjour Paris!".

After the bitter memory left by Klapisch's adventure in the film noir with "Ni Pour Ni Contre (Bien Au Contraire), 2003", the year 2005 saw him on clover again with a forte he had tapped in "le Péril Jeune" (1994): a right chronicle on young people of different ages and an accurate appraisal of their feelings. "Les Poupees Russes" constitutes the second opus of a more than estimable duo. Will there be a third chapter on Xavier's life?

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21 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
Xavier's love adventures in Europe, 26 juin 2005

Author: Jerome Emeriau (djflex128) de Paris, France

Xavier is 30 years old. He became a writer but seems a little lost. He is trying hard to settle and having one love adventure after another thoughtlessly. For a scenario writing job, he goes to London to work in collaboration with Wendy.

After the "Auberge Espagnole", Cédric Klapisch shows his talents again directing great actors such as Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou and Kelly Reilly.

When the movie was over, I thought that it was one of the best love stories I've ever seen. Each situation makes us think about ourselves and our own problems.

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
A warm, vibrant, flowing film, if not a deeply profound one, 14 mars 2006

Author: Chris Knipp de Berkeley, California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Cédric Klapisch's 2002 L'Auberge Espagnole was a hit both in France and on the more mainstream Miramaxical side of the US art-house circuit. Its multi-lingual picture of the international student life in Barcelona went down easy, and Russian Dolls is the sequel, again featuring Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Cécile de France, Kelly Reilly, et al.

Russian Dolls picks up Xavier (Duris) five years later, now a well-paid writer, and focuses more on Auberge's most provocative character, Wendy's volatile brother William (Kevin Bishop). Oscillating between odious and cute, Bishop is an actor whose little riffs are irresistible if sometimes troubling. He seemed a bigot in Barcelona, especially when he suggested that the German roommate, Tobias (Barnaby Metschurat), must inevitably be a Nazi. Russian Dolls gives William a chance to redeem himself by falling in love with a Russian ballet dancer touring England and going the extra mile to woo her, taking a year to learn Russian before he looks her up in St. Petersburg. His romanticism trumps his bigotry. William's suit is rewarded and there's a full reunion of the Barcelona students for the Russian wedding finale with various amorous contretemps along the way.

This is Romain Duris' fifth film with Klapisch. Though it was Duris'edgy performance in Jacques Audiard's The Beat My Heart Skipped (released three months before Dolls) that most profoundly altered Duris' reputation into that of a serious actor, still it's clear that Klapisch and Duris have been very good for each other.

While William finds true love, Wendy and Xavier have their own romantic whirlwind. Wendy seems to pick boozy, unreliable men. Xavier's still friendly with his former girlfriend, Martine – how could Klapisch banish Audrey Tautou? – but he shares Wendy's unlucky-in-love status. Even Martine seems stuck with a round of multiple partners -- a life now more worrying than fun: "Welcome to the thirties!" she declares. Xavier briefly dates a cute black girl, uses his lesbian ex-roommate Isabelle (Cécile de France) as a stand-in "fiancée" to meet his 98-year-old grandpa (Pierre Gérald), has a quick romance with would-be memoirist twenty-something super-model Celia (Lucy Gordon) and homes in on Wendy (Kelly Reilly).

When the TV series Xavier is writing a sequel to is bought by BBC, it has to be switched to English, and who should turn out to be a great scriptwriter but Wendy. Xavier commutes back and forth between Wendy's place in London and Celia's fab flat in Paris overlooking Notre Dame, speeding back and forth on the Eurostar. Later he slips off to Moscow from St. Petersburg in the middle of the preparations for William's marriage to Natacha (Evguenya Obraztsova). Locations change pretty fast, and never stop being glamorous and colorful.

This is strictly movie land, and it would be a mistake to take any of Russian Dolls too seriously, but Klapisch, who had five years to ponder this sequel but likes to improvise his script from day to day during shooting, knows how to keep the ball rolling. His whirlwind round of warring and flirting and uniting couples is sort of like Gabriele (Last Kiss) Muccini's operatic style, but with more international travel and fewer midlife crises. Paradoxically, though Muccini's Italians can seem devastatingly superficial, Klapish's motley crew seems even simpler. However, while Muccino's men and women, boys and girls are full of themselves, Xavier has a wry awareness that his glam life as a ghostwriter is essentially shallow.

It's felicitous that the final post-wedding sequence on a boat is one of the film's most memorable. Kevin Bishop's parents fight, the old Barcelona roommates give teary little speeches, the German boy agrees to forget the Nazi slur, and William throws up and cries with joy. Since this was a reunion for the young cast that was itself emotional, the scene has a genuine feeling. Klapisch will consider another sequel five more years hence, and maybe this will turn out like a romantic fictional version of Michael Apted's "—Up" series. This isn't deep, but it's warm, entertaining film-making with style and energy.

(Shown as part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Today at Lincoln Center March 2006, Les poupées russes opened in Paris June 15, 2005. It will be distributed by IFC and is scheduled for limited US release May 2006.)

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17 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
boring an senseless, 29 juin 2005

Author: bradaviel de paris

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

*SPOILERS* I don't know why I usually think that Romain Duris always gets the same parts, the "french guy" part, playboy without a cause, always dumb and uncontrollably spiteful when he's angry, spending his time destroying all he's trying to build, always trying to find dumber answers to dumb questions ( and believe me, as a French, seeing the "french guy" is such a bad cliché is quite annoying ). And that movie wasn't there to prove me wrong.

The thing is, I'm not into movies where characters do not evolve when those are so dumb i cannot identify myself with them. Here, Romain spends his time flirting, sleeping with every kind of girls he happens to find, not making any kind of effort just trying to make it work with one of them and asking himself "why is life so damn complicated ?". He doesn't hesitate one bit to cheat on his so called "loved one" and finally "realises" that he does love her ( dose he really ? ) because the nice chick that's got him cheating leaves him just like that to hunt for more interesting people. I quoted "realises" because it's less "realises" than it is finding himself an excuses to get back to the previous chick.

There are in this movie some of the most Dumbest reflections about love and relationships that I've heard in my life ( for example : you have to "try" every girl you can get your hands on to find the "one"... in fact that is not really dumb if you take it in a large scale, but in the characters perspective, regarding how he deals with women without making anything of effort except for begging them to forgive whatever mistakes he makes all the time, ( that is, when he's not just yelling and shouting at them ), i find it really revolting )

Of course there are good points in the movie.. The "describing the writer's profession" is often true and realistic, some jokes are really to die for ( especially the one with the neighbor being so amazed to realize that the big bang theory is just a .. theory :D ), the cast is great ( Tautou makes a great "idon't care about my surroundings, i just acer about everyone else" kind of 70s ideas person, Cecile De France Strongly depicts a bit too excessive lesbian), and finally, the movie depicts greatly the mood and state of mind of 30 y/o nowadays ( i'm 30, I should know some ). I'm sad that the "we are all part of the same planet" part is done in 2 minutes at the end of a marriage, like it HAD just to Be somewhere in the movie, just to honor the one character that has evolved since the previous movie, the characters usually being depicted in a single boring and minor storyline...

But I think the thing that mainly bothers me in this is .. it isn't at all a reflection. It isn't at all a movie saying " you won't get far being an idiot" because the girls will always fall for you and forgive you whatever stupid things you might do and that's just the way it is. Shouting, cheating are not issues, because there's love. And at the same time, the characters spend their time not understanding what's wrong with their lives, while not making any kind of efforts. Just living passively, just compelled by what they want to do or not. because their so called "freedom" is something that has to be absolute, whatever the consequences. and why is that ? the Romain's character says it like there's no way around it : i won't change, it's my way, that's who i am. ( i couldn't help but understanding it as : i'm just a complete idiot, bear with me because that's all there is to it" ) I won't be surprised to see another movie with yet again the same characters making exactly the same mistakes, and asking themselves the same dumb questions in another 10 years or so. May be that's the point finally ... proving that people do not evolve ?

I got strongly annoyed and bored at the half of the movie while still struggling to find it interesting, but i'm sorry, i just didn't. I've heard rumors here and there saying that Mr Klapish tried to make a bad movie on purpose ... i don't know if these a accurate, but to me he certainly succeeded

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
An immature 20-something may or may not commit himself to his girlfriend (yawn), 28 janvier 2007
Author: (roland@atkinsononfilm.com) de Portland, Oregon, United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Cédric Klapisch showed his breadth as a filmmaker when, in 1996, he completed two wonderful films in starkly contrasting genres and styles: "Chacun cherche son chat" ("When the Cat's Away"), an endearing light comedy about the eccentrics inhabiting a Parisian neighborhood, and "Un air de famille" ("Family Resemblances"), an intense, claustrophobic psychodrama about the propagation and feeding of neurosis within a family. He made other films after that, which I have not seen, and then came "L'Auberge espagnole" ("The Spanish Apartment") (2002) and now its sequel, "Russian Dolls," both of which, while wildly popular, I find quite dull, really boring in comparison with the two films he created a decade earlier.

Nothing much happens. The old international gang who grew fond of each other as college students in Barcelona (as depicted in "L'Auberge") reunite in St. Petersburg for the marriage of one of their old chums, William (Kevin Bishop), to a Russian girl, Natacha (Evguenya Obraztsova). This event brings to a head the conflict about commitment that has plagued the narcissistic, immature Xavier (Romain Duris) in his on-again-off-again relationship with the statuesque Wendy (Kelly Reilly). At one point Xavier escapes from Wendy's clutches for a brief romp with the dazzling beauty Celia (Lucy Gordon). And so it goes. Will Xavier ever grow up? Will Wendy's short skirts eventually disappear altogether? (Yawn)

I suppose these films are well received by younger adults everywhere, in part because they see reflected in the characters their own struggles to achieve and sustain intimacy, in part because the players come from so many places that younger viewers in almost any western nation can find one of their own on the screen here, and also because the ensemble is composed of good looking people. But the maturational issues are addressed ever so much better in Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset."

Besides Duris, Reilly and Bishop, also reunited for the sequel are Audrey Tautou (as Martine), Cécile De France (Isabelle), Irene Montalà (Neus), Cristina Brondo (Soledad), Federico D'Anna (Alessandro), Barnaby Metschurat (Tobias) and Christian Pagh (Lars). (Zzzzz) My grades: 5.5/10 (C+) (Seen on 01/23/07)

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