A Good Year



Shallow is as shallow does, until one gets a dash of “eau de French girl” and becomes more like a human being.

That’s the predictable path of Maxim, played by Russell Crowe, in this nostalgic film directed by Ridley Scott. Despite the heavy-weight talent, it is best viewed for it’s travelogue quotient.
Hard driving bastard Maxim, an alpha shark among sharks in the London stock market , unexpectedly inherits his Uncle’s vineyard in Provence. Memory flashbacks and life changing events ensue.

While there is some fun in the comic aspects of Maxim’s fish-out-of-water arrival at the run-down estate, his fall into a dry, dirty swimming pool overstates the point and plays much too long.

The only person around to aid him is a woman on a bicycle he unknowingly forced off the road who has arrived to confront him.
A lustrous Marion Cotillard plays the woman, rather cheaply named Fanny. A waitress at the local bistro, she has nothing but anger and contempt for our hero, which cedes to love and passion, natch.

The complicating elements include the former vineyard keeper and his wife, and a possible illegitimate cousin from America.

Albert Finney is featured in flashbacks as the recently deceased uncle who gave Maxim a home and several life lessons when the boy was 10 years old.
The film succeeds in contrasting the unconventional childhood Maxim experienced back then, with the emptiness not just of the estate but his own life in London, where the only bright spot (for the viewer) is Archie Panjabi as his very clever assistant.
That Fanny turns out to be a girl he had a childhood crush on is another sloppy twist in a less than satisfying film. Until that revelation, we had no hint of it, at all. Booo.

Perhaps the film stumbles because of Russell Crowe – an unsympathetic character really who looks goofy in eyeglasses and white sweaters; perhaps it’s the predictable script; perhaps it’s the familiarity of the story arc, maybe Ridley Scott just isn't a light-hearted director nor Crowe adept at conveying the lightness required either...whatever – A Good Year is, like the wine his estate produces, not very good.
Rather – not good enough to hold me riveted and engaged. I’d rather see the far more congenial woman-centred Under the Tuscan Sun.

Not really Recommended overall but Recommended for those who will appreciate the tonal aspects: the architecture, setting and landscape shots.