In its UK premiere and being promoted as one of the leading films of this year’s French Film Festival, Beloved follows the lives of mother Madeleine (Catherine Deveuve) and daughter Véra (Chiara Mastroianni) as they struggle to come to terms with unrequited love. Set across five decades and four countries, there’s plenty of carefully staged period details to become nostalgic over, with occasional tongue-in-cheek interludes to lighten the otherwise quite isolated existence of the two protagonists.
But at 139 minutes this is a long film – and it feels it. The characters are underdeveloped, no doubt because the plot moves forward too quickly to really enable the viewer to believe or care about what they’re going through. Songs occasionally interrupt the action, but aren’t frequent enough to really warrant categorising the film as a musical and don’t quite fit with the otherwise realistic feel of the film. All of them in some way melancholic, its difficult to distinguish between songs, and they often detract from the building emotion of the plot rather than adding to it. Despite a slightly more engaging storyline as the focus shifts onto Véra, it’s not enough to pull the film into the heartache writer/director Christophe Honoré seems to have been aiming for.
Boring, pointless, neither funny nor intelligent, empty movie. One may
wonder why such actresses accepted to play in such a weak film. Musik
is mediocre, acting even more so because there is nothing to play. Not
even D- A scam, a shame. Wasted my money. Avoid Belles actrices mais le
film est merdique. On s’ennuie a mort, ce n’est pas drole, les
chancons, pas mauvaises mais assez mediocres, ne colent pas. On se
demande pourquoi de telles actrices ont accepte cette honte car c’est
une honte. Je regrette enormement mon argent. Marcello Mastroiani
devrait tourner dans le tombeau. Un seul plaisir c’est de voir sa fille
qui lui ressemble de plus en plus.