Watching this fantasy of cashing out to live a life of food, wine, sex and sunlit idleness in Provence, you don't suspend disbelief for a minute. Right at the outset we are shown that Russell Crowe's character is exactly what his beloved uncle calls him when he cheats at chess as a boy -- "a little s**t." Now grown up, he enjoys making money by cheating, not so much for the money, though that's nice too, but for the sheer pleasure of dominating others by being smarter, tougher and more ruthless than they are. Since, he's surrounded by agreeably available women in London (the movie tries to make a running joke of flashes and cleavage shots) it is clear that he needn't sleep alone. Nothing Crowe does makes us believe that he is less than perfectly satisfied with the life he leads, or that he would give it up to take up with a Provencal girl and contendedly guzzle home grown wine on the terrace. Nothing convinces that he and she are made for each other, or that she should see him as anything but a good looking rich foreigner who'll be an enjoyable but short-lived roll in the hay. Because Crowe's boss writes him a thumping severance check when he turns down a partnership and leaves the firm, his choice is too easy to be interesting. His buddy the real estate agent has it right. After six months he'll be bored to death, up to his ears in some financial shenanigan, and probably fooling around on his honey just to prove to himself that he can get away with it.
The subplot with the American cousin never gets its feet untangled because the conflict between them over who deserves the property and what to do with it isn't fully developed. She's supposed to be smarter, tougher and more knowledgeable about wine than her youth and good looks indicate, but she doesn't get to do very much with those qualities. Crowe's character can't stand losing. It would have deepened him, and explained his change of life, to have this kid see through him, take him on and beat him at his own game. It would have been a more dramatically satisfying romance to have him try to seduce her, fail, and then fall in love and have to win her. The film hints at those possibilities and immediately backs away.
There's a lot else wrong with the picture. We never feel that Crowe is actually in serious trouble over the financial maneuver that gets him suspended for a week because he never acts like a man who's job is on the line. There are a number of pointless sexual innuendos involving secondary characters that don't go anywhere except, perhaps, the cutting room floor. The rental car foul up is formulaic, not credible and therefore not funny. The smack at a couple of clueless American tourists with Southern accents is smug, gratuitous and irritating. Albert Finney's role of Bacchus as an English gentleman gone native is written by the numbers and phoned in on screen. The flashback structure allows Scott to pull out of the hat whatever rabbits he needs to keep the plot moving, like Crowe's childhood ability to imitate his uncle's handwriting and his one childhood encounter with the woman he falls in love with. That actress, by the way, is too young for a character whom we learn is about the same age as Crowe.
The only really enjoyable performance is Archie Panjabi (who played Parminder Nagra's older sister in Bend It Like Beckham) as Crowe's hip, all knowing secretary. Her work I'd like to see more of.
Bottom line is that this is an unsuccessful variant on the formula High Pressure Guy Finds Self And Love In Laid Back Town. Cars and Doc Hollywood did it better. The Luberon region photographs beautifully, but that's it.
The subplot with the American cousin never gets its feet untangled because the conflict between them over who deserves the property and what to do with it isn't fully developed. She's supposed to be smarter, tougher and more knowledgeable about wine than her youth and good looks indicate, but she doesn't get to do very much with those qualities. Crowe's character can't stand losing. It would have deepened him, and explained his change of life, to have this kid see through him, take him on and beat him at his own game. It would have been a more dramatically satisfying romance to have him try to seduce her, fail, and then fall in love and have to win her. The film hints at those possibilities and immediately backs away.
There's a lot else wrong with the picture. We never feel that Crowe is actually in serious trouble over the financial maneuver that gets him suspended for a week because he never acts like a man who's job is on the line. There are a number of pointless sexual innuendos involving secondary characters that don't go anywhere except, perhaps, the cutting room floor. The rental car foul up is formulaic, not credible and therefore not funny. The smack at a couple of clueless American tourists with Southern accents is smug, gratuitous and irritating. Albert Finney's role of Bacchus as an English gentleman gone native is written by the numbers and phoned in on screen. The flashback structure allows Scott to pull out of the hat whatever rabbits he needs to keep the plot moving, like Crowe's childhood ability to imitate his uncle's handwriting and his one childhood encounter with the woman he falls in love with. That actress, by the way, is too young for a character whom we learn is about the same age as Crowe.
The only really enjoyable performance is Archie Panjabi (who played Parminder Nagra's older sister in Bend It Like Beckham) as Crowe's hip, all knowing secretary. Her work I'd like to see more of.
Bottom line is that this is an unsuccessful variant on the formula High Pressure Guy Finds Self And Love In Laid Back Town. Cars and Doc Hollywood did it better. The Luberon region photographs beautifully, but that's it.