Beaumarchais . Tucson Weekly . 01-12-98

Beaumarchais

DIRECTED BY: Edouard Molinaro

REVIEWED: 01-12-98

Fabrice Luchini is extremely compelling as playwright Beaumarchais, whose mild political satires were enough to get him repeatedly thrown into the Bastille in pre-Revolutionary France. However, in spite of his charming insouciance, Luchini's performance cannot completely carry this film through its lurching, uneven episodes. The opening segment deals with Beaumarchais the political artist, but then the movie switches gears to become a spy film, wherein secret plans must be recovered from a gender-bending French agent in England. It's hard to get involved in this tale as no information about the purpose of the mission is given until its resolution, when everything is explained too neatly and without art. Then it's on to another, vaguely related segment, and so on. The only thing providing continuity is a thin tale about a young man who idolizes Beaumarchais and wishes that he would just stick to writing. Still, the dialogue is intermittently hilarious, and Luchini is amusing enough to make this a viable alternative to most Hollywood attempts at entertainment.

--DiGiovanna

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Beaumarchais
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