Fabrice Andrivon's review: “Marcello Mio”, a film with potential that lets its riches escape

Le film cherche à montrer quel héritage laisse un homme à ses proches. Allociné – Jean-Louis Fernandez

Ce film est projeté cette semaine à Mende et Langogne.

Malgré tout notre bon vouloir, difficile d’aimer Marcello Mio, which resolutely misses the mark on his good idea. The good idea in question is to create a kind of fake documentary that questions the notion of heritage: what remains of a man in the memory of his daughter, his ex-wife, the people who knew him?? What remains of an actor in the memory of the viewer??

An interesting reflection, which Honoré transforms into a light-hearted little game, a good-natured comedy: Chiara, his daughter, in the midst of an existential crisis, decides that she will now be Marcello Mastroianni. The opportunity for the film to return in a treasure hunt style to the career of the actor, Marcello Mio, full of little more or less subtle winks to the great films of the gentleman.

A conventional film without fantasy

In the first reels, the tone, very gentle, funny without being comical, works well, even if we are upset about the acting (Deneuve or Biolay, in particular). But little by little, Honoré loses sight of his subject and begins to wander from scene to scene without having anything more to tell.

Marcello's shadow moves further and further away in this series of ghostly scenes, which tell nothing about the actor or his daughter, but are content with ;rsquo;align conventional motives or uninteresting anecdotes. There is something painful about feeling Honoré absolutely wanting to be part of this family and to defend these poor children of stars.

All he manages to make is a very conventional film, deprived of any fantasy or reverie, of any magic despite his frenzied desire to make in the & quot;wonderful."

I subscribe to read more