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Canada, France · 2011
2h 0m
Director Jean-Marc Vallée
Starring Vanessa Paradis, Kevin Parent, Hélène Florent, Evelyne Brochu
Genre Drama, Romance
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Jacqueline is a young mother, abandoned by her husband, living in 1960s Paris with her disabled son, Laurent. Antoine is a successful DJ in present day Montreal with two beautiful daughters, and a loving partner. However, nothing is perfect and Antoine’s ex-wife Carole remains devastated by their recent separation.
Remove the subtitles, and it's one of Cameron Crowe's head-in-the-clouds dramas, as scripted by M Night Shyamalan: an insultingly arbitrary reveal, preceded by vast, wailing washes of Pink Floyd and Sigur Rós. A very vanilla sky, this.
Postdivorce reconciliation tales - not to mention mother-whore disquisitions - don't get more elaborate than this.
Cafe de Flore constantly hovers on the brink on some revelation it never quite arrives at.
Miami Herald by Rene Rodriguez
This is a gorgeous, flashy, widescreen epic, like "Boogie Nights" or "Casino," about the most essential things in life: Family, friends and love. But most of all, love.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen
The film commands our attention again as more connections emerge -- not enough to fully solve the mystery, but sufficient to convince us that Café de Flore amounts to more than the triumph of style over substance.
Slant Magazine by Steve Macfarlane
It's a pretty tired proposition to complain about movies being manipulative, but Café de Flore sets the bar especially low.
Beneath the surface panache lies an overlong, emotionally shallow study of so-called 'twin flames', possible reincarnation and learning to let go of love.
Where it reads 'home', there is hell. Where it reads 'love', there is pain.
A teenager's sense of morality is challenged after he is forced to join a gypsy gang.
Emma, an unfulfilled mother of three adult children, finds her senses rekindled by her son's friend.
He's broken every heart except his own...until now.
A couple of variables
Survival. Honor. Sacrifice.