Ordo (2004)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Laurence Ferreira Barbosa

Writers:

Laurence Ferreira Barbosa (writer)
Nathalie Najem (writer)

Release Date:

15 September 2004 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Ordo Tupikos, a french sailor with greek origins, discover that his first wife, Estelle, with whom he...

Plot Keywords:

Female Frontal Nudity | Voyeurism | Skinny Dipping | Female Nudity | Sex

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Roschdy Zem	...	Ordo Tupikos
Marie-Josée Croze	...	Louise Sandoli
Marie-France Pisier	...	La mère de Louise
Yves Jacques	...	Richard Féraud
Scali Delpeyrat	...	Marc
Hélène Patarot	...	Wang
Margaux Vallé	...	Estelle
Nina Morato	...	Fanny
Isabelle Meyer	...	Juliette
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Daphné Baiwir	...	Estelle enfant
Thomas Clerc	...	Ludovic
François Comar	...	William
Pierre Diot	...	Jérôme
Philippe Dormoy	...	Le photographe
Philippe Duquesne	...	Mario, le gérant de l'hôtel
Pedro Giestas	...	Philippe
Kemar Gulbenkian	...	Patrice
João Lagarto	...	Le metteur en scène
Jean-Pierre Léonardini	...	Léon
Raphaël Neal	...	Denis
Fabio Zenoni	...	Daniel

Runtime:

France:115 min

Country:

France | Portugal | Canada

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Company:

Gémini Films

Intrigue for its own sake

A film with an exceedingly slight story line hangs together simply through the mild suspense of wondering what Ordo the hunky marine-corps guy is going to find out about his teenage bride who has now, unknown to him, become a big movie star.

His shipmates find a celeb news story that for some reason mentions him for the first time and shows their marriage photo --- anyway it's the pretext for him to dig around in his memory and decide he wants to know more about this big star who used to be his cradle-snatched bride (she lied about being 18 but was really 16), because he can't recognise her.

The action is extremely languid, a little reminiscent of the Roman novels of Alberto Moravia, where one reads on from page to page knowing that nothing is going to happen, but hypnotised by the suggestion that something might.

There's plenty of Marie Josee Croze in the buff, if you like chilly 30-something blondes, swimming around her millionaire swim-pool and making out with hunky Ordo for old times' sake. The affair comes to the inevitable end, and the resolution of the plot is all in Ordo's mind.

It's watchable in a lazy kind of way, with a stolid performance from Roschdy and a sensitive treatment of a difficult part by Croze, but it suffers from having a phony story contrived from a Yankee pulp novel. I think it's the first French-Portuguese-Canadian co-production I've ever seen. I always watch films made by women, but in this case it's hard to tell a woman wrote and directed.