Comedy about a high-society lady who gets kidnapped. Her husband, an unpleasant man, tries to haggle with the kidnappers. The wife takes this very badly and joins forces with the criminals in order to demand a suitably prestigious ransom. (American readers take note : this was years before "Ruthless people".) The sudden arrival of an unhappy jet pilot, who had to bail from his airplane, complicates things even further.
This could have been a brilliant comedy, but this is not the case ; it's watchable and vaguely amusing, nothing more. The far-fetched storyline about the jet pilot, who gets mistaken for a Russian cosmonaut, gets old very quickly - and it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. About the best assets are a good lead performance by Jacqueline Maillan, whose Mathilde combines style, wit and cleverness, and some nice one-liners. (A small example : "That's the trouble with kidnapping. It's hard to have a meaningful conversation, as both parties tend to hail from different social backgrounds".)
"Mathilde" also illustrates an interesting point about fashion, although that wasn't the intention of the various makers of the movie. It is very very very very difficult for a fashion designer to invent something truly new, given the fact that humans have been packaging themselves in textiles for thousands of years. As a result the same ideas get re-used and recycled and recycled and re-used. By way of exhibit A, I show you the white evening gown worn by the heroine during the first half of the movie. Take a contemporary actress or celebrity of similar build and colouring, dress her in the gown and put her on a red carpet. Nobody will bat an eyelid. On the contrary, people might applaud the elegant beauty of the look.
It's a sad thought that amuses me deeply.
This could have been a brilliant comedy, but this is not the case ; it's watchable and vaguely amusing, nothing more. The far-fetched storyline about the jet pilot, who gets mistaken for a Russian cosmonaut, gets old very quickly - and it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. About the best assets are a good lead performance by Jacqueline Maillan, whose Mathilde combines style, wit and cleverness, and some nice one-liners. (A small example : "That's the trouble with kidnapping. It's hard to have a meaningful conversation, as both parties tend to hail from different social backgrounds".)
"Mathilde" also illustrates an interesting point about fashion, although that wasn't the intention of the various makers of the movie. It is very very very very difficult for a fashion designer to invent something truly new, given the fact that humans have been packaging themselves in textiles for thousands of years. As a result the same ideas get re-used and recycled and recycled and re-used. By way of exhibit A, I show you the white evening gown worn by the heroine during the first half of the movie. Take a contemporary actress or celebrity of similar build and colouring, dress her in the gown and put her on a red carpet. Nobody will bat an eyelid. On the contrary, people might applaud the elegant beauty of the look.
It's a sad thought that amuses me deeply.