Rent The Big Picture (2010)

Misfiring French thriller - The Big Picture review by Alphaville

Family drama turns thriller after a startling plot point at the end of Act 1. Our hero’s life changes irrevocably and we’re suddenly in a different film with different characters. Probably better to ditch that first half-hour and treat it as back story, but that’s not the main problem. There’s no action and the low-key atmosphere never makes our man’s predicament at all thrilling.

What we’re left with is a more of an escapist movie than a thriller. No thrills, no excitement, just a meandering drama abut a man trying to escape his troubles, with only a few scenes that temporarily up interest. Based on a book with the same feeble title, the French title The Man Who Wanted to Live His Life is much nearer the mark.

If you don’t want to watch the film, the trailer will tell you the whole story in a much shorter time.

Man on the edge of a nervous breakdown - The Big Picture review by CH

Fabulous……..a true French existential crisis of a film. Think of a Parisian bourgeois lifestyle with all the attendant trimmings and trappings. Then make one or two false moves and kaboom, the  edifice crashes down and buries our now hapless antihero under the rubble and roulette game that is another life. Call me heartless………but this was an unexpectedly thrilling film.