Direction: Woody Allen
Country: USA
The prolific New Yorker Woody Allen returned to Paris for his 50th film, Coup de Chance, an anemic romance that morphs into an uninvolving detective comedy. With a fully French cast led by Lou de Laâge and Melvil Poupaud as Fanny and Jean Fournier, respectively, the film follows them as a married couple whose relationship is suddenly thrown into turmoil when Fanny encounters Alain Aubert (Niels Schneider), a former high school friend and eternal admirer.
While the themes are recurrent in Allen’s filmography, the execution leaves much to be desired as the elements don’t quite mesh. Delivered without magic or brilliance, this is an ordinary masquerade superficially plotted, sloppily directed, unevenly acted, and whose attempting humor falls flat. While the conventional dialogue and mannered staging are quintessentially Allen-esque, they fail to elevate the film beyond its artificial Parisian backdrop, depicted with excessive sharpness and color.
Coup de Chance is Woody Allen at his weakest, presenting every emotion and action as false, idiotic or frivolous. The film's saving grace lies in its incredibly groovy jazz soundtrack, featuring trumpeter Nat Adderley performing two of his own pieces: “Fortune’s Child” and “In the Bag”, along with a wonderful rendition of Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island”.
