AUTUMN TALE

AUTUMN TALE (1999) ***1/2

Reviewed 7/18/99

Eric Rohmer ends his Four Seasons cycle with Autumn Tale, which I found to be the most delightful of the four. I've never used the adjective "delectable" for a film before, but it is suitable here. While slow to start, the plot setup is exquisite. Magali is a widowed winegrower passively looking for a man in her life. Magali's best friend Isabelle and Magali's son's girlfriend Rosine are all too happy to help her out. Isabelle places a personals ad for Magali behind her back, then proceeds to meet a gentleman who answers the ad to ascertain his desirability. Rosine tries to match Magali with her much older ex-lover.

What makes Autumn Tale so much more exhilarating than other films with this type of plot is that Rohmer plays it completely, utterly straight. Of course, this is standard Rohmer. While Rohmer hints at several potential avenues the movie could have gone down, most of which would have led to broad Hollywood-style situational comedy, he resists and sticks with a realistic course of events. The payoff works not so much because of plot complications but because we become so involved with the characters, even if not all of them are likeable.

The actors get much of the credit for this. Béatrice Romand has virtually grown up in Rohmer films starting from Claire's Knee. Her pensive, stubborn Magali with a mass of frizzy hair is completely convincing. Marie Rivière, another Rohmer veteran, plays Isabelle with suitable guile and mischief. The beautiful Alexia Portal is intentionally irksome as Rosine who thinks she knows more than she does, but she is nonetheless charming. Rohmer's focus has always been more toward women than men in his films and it shows. Not that Alain Libolt as Gérald who answers the personals ad is not perfectly wonderful, but it's not his movie.

Not everyone will take to Autumn Tale, which as typical Rohmer, is all dialogue. But if you are a Rohmer fan, Autumn Tale is not to be missed.