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France, Belgium, Germany · 2021
1h 48m
Director Martin Bourboulon
Starring Romain Duris, Emma Mackey, Pierre Deladonchamps, Armande Boulanger
Genre Drama, Romance
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As Gustave Eiffel finishes his collaboration on the Statue of Liberty, he is pressured by the French government to design something spectacular for the 1889 Paris World Fair. When Eiffel crosses paths with a mysterious woman from his past, their long-lost passion inspires him to build the iconic Eiffel Tower.
The New York Times by Beatrice Loayza
One can’t help but wonder if Eiffel is merely a lame fantasy or a particularly spineless form of mythmaking, whittling down as it does one nation’s politically loaded event to the equivalent of an Eiffel Tower key chain with an inscription reading “city of love.”
Austin Chronicle by Kimberley Jones
“Freely inspired by a true story.” That’s the filmmakers’ cunningly phrased hand-wave acknowledging the gap between actual history and the moony-eyed imagined romance proffered here. Still, it’s a curious deployment of the creative license: You’d think the construction of one of man’s greatest monuments would supply sufficient drama on its own.
Screen Daily by Lisa Nesselson
Issues of class, wealth and power are woven into the tale but this is a bittersweet love story at heart.
You might think that a movie about the construction of one of the most iconic structures in the world would be carefully put together. But that is not the case with the sumptuous, often frustrating Eiffel, the story of a man whose name is as joined to the Tower emblematic of Paris as the 133-year-old beams that are still sturdily riveted (not bolted) together.
Bourboulon hatches a second-rate romance, rather than detailing the rich, real-life drama that swirled around Eiffel’s controversial endeavor.
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