Review of Shall We Kiss? (2007) by Jason R — 04 Apr 2009

The comparisons that have been drawn between Mouret and Woody Allen are certainly apt, but they raise an interesting question. First of all, though, Mouret's going to have to get a lot funnier for that comparison to mean much.

Perhaps the jokes are better in French, but I wonder if they come in a greater quantity, too. If this is a romantic comedy, it's certainly light on the latter quality. Back to Woody. Speaking of influences, it's par for the course in writing on Allen's films to indicate the ways in which all of his films either remake a Bergman or a Fellini flick, or some combination thereof.

One might think, then, that by the transitive property of aesthetic influence, a filmmaker influenced by Woody would, by default, also be a filmmaker influenced by Bergman or Fellini, even if they didn't know it (though you can't miss it in Allen's work).

But to my eye, Mouret shows no traces of an interest in either of these directors in this film; instead, he skims from Allen's literary conceits and offers a kind of hollow copy of films like "Annie Hall," "Manhattan," and "Hannah and Her Sisters.

" Mouret is an odd looking man with an inexplicable unibrow (seriously, wax that thing), so Allen is an obvious model, but I think he's going to have to study harder before his films warrant the same attention Allen's get.