Review of Broken English: Three Songs by Marianne Faithfull (1979) by Michael L — 23 Jul 2007

I took myself out on a date and saw this one last Sunday. At least I didn't walk out of the theater feeling worse about myself. But the film's a delight, charming, reassuring from start to finish, best viewed from the center of a packed house, which seems to be more and more the status quo at the Landmark.

It's remarkable what some people, strangers, will admit to one another in the dark. During a scene between Parker Posey and Melvil Poupaud in a New York Cafe, he looks at her and asks, with a small index of hesitation, "you think a man doesn't like you if you don't sleep with him?" Posey adamantly shakes her head 'no' but then her face crumples, she sighs as if to suggest otherwise.

And just at this moment, somewhere in the back of the auditorium, with Poupaud's question hanging in the air, a young woman says 'yes' much louder, I think, than she intended. And we all laughed.