Laurent Stocker, left, Francoise Bertin and Audrey Tatou star in writer-director Claude Berri's 'Hunting and Gathering.'
A Pathe Distribution release of a Hirsch, Pathe Renn Prod. presentation of a Hirsch, Pathe Renn Prod., TF1 Films Prod. production, with participation of Canal Plus, CNC. (International sales: Pathe Distribution, Paris.) Produced by Pierre Grunstein. Directed, written by Claude Berri, based on the novel by Anna Gavalda.
Camille - Audrey Tautou
Franck - Guillaume Canet
Philibert - Laurent Stocker
Paulette - Francoise Bertin
Four needy people tentatively intersect to touching and entertaining effect in "Hunting and Gathering." Lead quartet of thesps -- Audrey Tautou, Guillaume Canet, Laurent Stocker, Francoise Bertin -- is pitch-perfect in vet writer-director Claude Berri's bittersweet exploration of characters whose problems are as convincing as their foibles. Groundwork is so deftly laid that even the over-convenient resolution or two feel earned. On the surface, pic seems like a typical, mostly downbeat French ensembler, but it's actually headed toward cheerier horizons. Local prospects look solid, with offshore play strongly indicated.
Tale, based on Anna Gavalda's 2004 novel "Ensemble, c'est tout" (known in its English translation as "Hunting and Gathering"), has some of the tang of Jean-Charles Tacchella's neighbors-helping-neighbors ensembler "Escalier C" (1985). The 2003 Amerindie "The Station Agent" is also a cousin in the valiant wounded-souls department. In short, what should be depressing isn't.
Scrawny Camille (Tautou) has a talent for sketching. She cleans office buildings after business hours and lives in a Parisian attic. One night, she meets a fellow tenant, courtly and erudite Philibert (Stocker), who has a stutter and an aristocratic surname a mile long.
Philibert lives in a vast bourgeois apartment that could be sold by his late grandmother's estate at any moment. His roommate, Franck (Canet), is as much a regular guy as Philibert is a throwback to a more refined era.
Franck works long hours as a cook six days a week. He drinks, smokes and beds brainless babes, but is antsy and dissatisfied. Franck loves his grandmother, Paulette (Bertin), who raised him, but resents having to spend precious days off visiting her after she breaks her leg. On her side, the widowed Paulette resents having to stay in a convalescent home.
When Camille gets the flu, Philibert moves her into a spare room. The household dynamic then starts shifting like tectonic plates, creating a sort of free market of emotional supply and demand. Camille and Franck cordially detest each other and a thaw doesn't seem likely -- although that's what movie conventions demand.
Berri's previous pic as director (2005's "One Stays, the Other Leaves") beautifully dealt with people so well off, you'd want to slap them if they didn't have their share of difficulties, too. By contrast, the characters in "Hunting" work hard for meager pay but are upright and self-sufficient. Philibert's massive apartment is a temporary taste of privilege, not a given.
With the lion's share of the pic set in Philibert's apartment, the city of Paris is presented as a place where the doorknobs are handsome but lonely people muddle through as best they can. "Home" is a malleable concept.
Although Tautou and Canet couldn't be better, it's Stocker auds will want to wrap up and take home. His Philibert -- who has memorable onscreen elocution lessons from the actual speech therapist (Philippe Van Eeckhout) who helped Berri after a recent stroke -- is radiantly distinctive.
As Paulette, Bertin reps the essence of the life force while also embodying Berri's recurring concerns about aging, infirmity and mortality. Veteran thesp has credits in half a dozen Alain Resnais films, stretching back to "Last Year at Marienbad."
Frederic Botton's score is elegant and fitting, in keeping with the unostentatious tech package in which Agnes Godard's skillful lensing is a highlight.
Camera (color), Agnes Godard; editor, Francois Gedigier; music, Frederic Botton; production designers, Laurent Ott, Hoang Thanh At; costume designer, Sylvie Gautrelet; sound (Dolby), Pierre Gamet, Nadine Muse, Gerard Lamps; artistic consultant, Francois Dupeyron; associate producer, Nathalie Rheims; casting, Gerard Moulevrier. Reviewed at Pathe screening room, Paris, March 13, 2007. Running time: 97 MIN.
With: Firmine Richard, Helene Surgere, Daniele Lebrun, Sandrine Mazeas, Philippe Van Eeckhout.
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Date in print: Mon., Mar. 26, 2007