Movie Reviews by Roger Moore

Mood Indigo Movie Review & Trailer

The eccentric whimsy and invention overfill the screen of Michel Gondry's "Mood Indigo," an adaptation of a novel by the Frenchman who wrote "I Spit on Your Graves." Set in an alternate "Brazil"/"Delicatessen"/"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" reality, it's a blur of queer gadgets and odd doodads, see-through limousines and dinner tables on roller skates, all in a tale concocted by an office full of women clattering at a conveyor belt of typewriters.

That it doesn't add up to much more than eye candy can be attributed to the batting average of its director, Gondry -- whose latest film has more in common with his inscrutable failures "Human Nature" and "The Science of Sleep" than with "Be Kind Rewind," or his great romantic triumph, "Eternal Sunshine."

Romain Duris ("Chinese Puzzle," "Heartbreaker") plays Colin, a quirky inventor whose latest gizmo is his finest achievement. The pianocktail concocts novelty cocktails to suit whatever piece you play on the instrument. Colin has an ear for Duke Ellington's tunes, "Mood Indigo" in particular.

Nicolas (Omar Sy of "The Intouchables") is his daffy live-in chef, whose culinary creations literally dance (stop-motion animation) across the plate. He gets his ideas from a TV chef because if he's missing an ingredient or spice, the chef on TV reaches through the ancient cathode-ray tube and hands it to him.

Colin's best friend is Chick (Gad Elmaleh of "Midnight in Paris"). He's obsessed with his favorite philosopher, Jean Sol Partre. Cute.

But Chick has fallen for Alise (Aissa Maiga), Nicolas' sister, and Nicolas has found love with Isis (Charlotte Le Bon). Colin is beside himself.

"I demand to fall in love too!" he shouts, in French with English subtitles.

And so he does, with none other than Chloe -- the sparkly Audrey Tautou of "Amelie" fame.

Their courtship isn't particularly charming or warm, which matters all the more when Chloe, inhaling an enchanted snowflake as she sleeps, develops an illness in which plants grow out of her lungs. Colin could possibly come up with some invention to save her. But the only thing that keeps her alive is covering her in flowers, which exhausts Colin's finances, forcing him to take a succession of terrible jobs, including human plant cover. (People are paid to strip and lie down on piles of dirt so that brass acorns can germinate into proton guns.)

The polymath Boris Vian's novel "L'ecume des Jours" ("Froth on the Daydream" is as good a translation as any) has been turned into an opera, an earlier French film and the Japanese movie "Chloe." Perhaps those adaptations are more coherent, more emotionally accessible, than "Mood Indigo."

Gondry is famed for tackling the dense and dark side of "twee," with American Wes Anderson having a firm chokehold on the lighter side of it. Everyday items are magically reinvented for the film, but the characters -- despite breaking into balletic "jetes" on occasion-- are rarely more than bystanders, witnesses to the weirdness.

It's well cast, but Tautou and Duris don't set off the sparks and create the longing that would give this tragic romance some heft. Everybody else takes a back seat to the inspired visuals.

"Mood Indigo" - 2 Stars

No MPAA rating

Running time: 1:34.

"Mood Indigo" Movie Trailer

 

About the Movie "Mood Indigo"

'Mood Indigo' is the surreal and poetic tale of Colin, an idealistic and inventive young man, and Chloe, a young woman who seems like the physical embodiment of the eponymous Duke Ellington tune. Their idyllic marriage is turned on its head when Chloe falls sick. To pay for her medical bills, Colin must go out to work in a series of increasingly absurd jobs

"Mood Indigo" Movie Review - "Mood Indigo" Stars Romain Duris & Audrey Tautou

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