Happy End

This movie is currently playing in Paris as 'Happy End', hence my summary. Tautou has great presence and luminosity, no question, and equally obvious is that she has the makings of another Audrey Hepburn. But this isn't it. Someone has obviously seen the grosses on Breakfast At Tiffany's and figured, okay, let's do another adorable kook in Manhattan, let's have another writer manque become enamored of her and write about her successfully. Okay, it may be dated by now but Breakfast at Tiffs had STYLE. How else could they get away with making Hepburn WORSE than a hooker, a hooker who took money from guys on the tacit understanding that she would come across later and then powder via the powder room. True, they were more up front with the George Peppard character, he WAS a gigolo any way you sliced it, but they could get away with contriving a WHOLESOME romance between two slightly sleazy people because of the Style with which it was done. It was a pity there was no believably chemistry between Hepburn and Peppard but given that Peppard was a graduate of the Forestry Commission School of Acting that was always going to be a problem and given that Hepburn actually married a pygmy Redwood in the shape of Mel Ferrer, she couldn't complain. In this one, Tautou is cast as the adorable kook, French style, come to Manhattan to make it as an actress. She is reduced, however, not only to cleaning toilets but also sleeping and peeing outside the house of Justin Therouze (who he?), a would-be leading man clearly destined to go the same way as Nathalie Nattier. There would be more sexual chemistry between Golda Meir and Yasser Arafat than these two mismatched lovers. See it if you like Tautou, the camera loves her, but that's the best you can say for it. 3/10