Andres Salama This "elegant" French feature is about a winter-summer romance between a judge in his seventies (Michel Serraut) and a hot woman in her twenties (Emmanuelle Beart) who has just separated from his brutish, good-for-nothing, young husband (Charles Berling). He cancels her debts, pays her for her work as a sub par typist of his memoirs, and they go and dine in fancy restaurants in Paris where he spouts supposedly profound witticisms about life. This is really a sexual fantasy by the director (Claude Sautet who was about 70 when he filmed this and looked a lot like the white haired Serrault, surely not by chance) that young women in their twenties will still be attracted to men like him for their "mind", their "sophistication" and their "intelligence". "Sophisticated" French films of this sort were ridiculed by the New Wave in the 1960s as "films de qualite", the term quality of course being ironic. This was Sautet's last film.

jcappy The title "Nelly and Monsieur Artaud" suggests both a friendship and an unequal relationship. We know Nelly (an editor) through her responses to the men in her life. We know Monsieur Artaud through his long history, careers, ideas, and finally through his relationship with women, past and present. They are not on the same social plane in life nor in the movie, and to imagine anything more than an occasionally touching friendship between them is to make a mistake.Pierre Artuad is a rather wealthy, dapper gentleman, once a judge in the pacific islands, and then a luminary in the business world. He's sophisticated, in touch with history, politics, and the arts; has authored two books, and owns a impressive private library. He's obviously opposed to French colonialism: the native's "constant smile told me I wasn't wanted." And in listing the countries of his long postponed worldwide trip, notes "to places where they don't kill tourists." As a "fearsome businessman" with an "unbending" hateful son working for Microsoft in Seattle, he nevertheless despises the corrupting power of big business which "does not leave you a better man." As his ex-partner says, "I'd rather be his friend than his enemy." But judging by his advancements in colonial law and in a pretty ruthless business practice, his scruples were more adaptive than provoking--of change.Still Monsieur Artaud does possess a significant degree of self-awareness. He accepted the judgeship because of his "sedentary nature," and his sharp mental discipline and discerning eye matched up well with a business career. His wife, he tells us, left him during one of his "acute states of ordinary misogyny," and he is very cognizant of his poor "track record" with women. "I was a lousy father, and a lousy husband," he confesses. Computers are a bane to him, and his extensive private library in now of no use to him--"I'm at an age when I read the same few books over and over." He says of Nelly's husband, he's "insolent but in a nice way." His friend Jackie praises his capacity for listening, and describes him to Nelly as "delicate and civilized," adding that "his eyes don't miss a thing." But he can ridicule his wife to Nelly, broadcasting her readiness to criticize his business ethics, while indulging in luxurious tastes. Finally, Artuad is a humorous man, at least since the leisure of retirement and the wisdom of advanced age--he says to Jackie whose latest man is another cad: "Why not me, I can offer liberty, security----and austerity." So, what do we know about Nelly? I'm afraid not too much by way of identity. She's an out of work editor making do with odd jobs. She's divorcing a husband who would rather speak to an encyclopedia salesman than seek employment, and dating Monsieur Artaud's squinty publisher. We know she's competent and can be incredibly firm in her actions and words. We don't know her last name. We never see her mother. Through her, Pierre Artuaud unfolds, but the reverse cannot be said. (For Artaud seems to chiefly question her about her sex life--imagined or real). We also know that she has a frankness with men that can be very telling. Baert/Nelly is at her very peak (as actor/person) in her radically exposing break-off scene with Granec. And she is perfectly at ease criticizing Artaud's writing style and content, as well as his "heinous" business practices. In this sense, and with all her obvious and credited charm, she has a trans-formative effect on him, drawing him out and away from accustomed solitude.The question is: is she similarly changed by this unlikely relationship? Does she have more identity in the end or more security---I mean being left totally in charge of her editing work is a far cry from kneading bread dough. Yes, Nelly has rubbed shoulders with another class, and been touched by the grace of an old man, but is this real change? His interest in her as too often been prying, too often been based on that "passion which never dies" (even as he resists it), and too often been traced back to his own self-interest. Actually there is one moment in which he did seem to add something to her life. It was in that business café, in commenting on the gawkers, Nelly says they see "me as a prostitute," and he counters by saying "or gorgeous courageous professional." But in general, he only has his prestige and difference to offer, which are less a change than an experience. And in the end her own scruples over her expressed rage in back-to-back scenes with Granec and Artaud, are not so easily shut down as the far graver ones of her breezy companion, and in a moment, the bright light of day fades to night.

Dennis Littrell are featured rather prominently in this ultra sophisticated film by Claude Sautet, perhaps to the point of annoyance for some. Mlle. Beart, whom I first saw in Claude Berri's Manon of the Spring (1986), has largest, most beautiful eyes one would ever want to see, and she is a fine actress with a smooth and subtle style. However I think that Sautet worked too exclusively with glances of nuance, raised and lowered lids, eyes widened and narrowed and such and such to further the story and to create character when he might have added a line of dialogue here and there.Yet I liked this and certainly prefer such a style to the loud gestures and over the top hysterics that some directors might have employed. Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud (Beart and Michel Serrault) do raise their voices once--a lover's spat one might say, he to perhaps show he is still alive, she to show that she cares enough to get angry with him and has an independent spirit.This then is a love story, super fine like gossamer and civilized to the point of something close to a burlesque of being civilized, and yet, and yet, because he is well past the age of retirement and she a vibrant young woman in her prime, the story must be presented in symbol and gesture: the back rub, the Platonic staying overnight, the little spat mentioned above, the muted jealousies, the stealthy triumph of the returning wife--in short it has everything a love affair might have, the bittersweet (their parting) and the bitter (a night with another, younger man) and the very sweet (the Sauternes, Château d'Yquem, no less, older than the woman herself, apres diner).What Sautet does so well and so completely here is show how such a bloodless affair can touch the heart of both the old guy who knows that he can never express himself sexually and the young woman who knows that as well, how their love is emotional and deeply felt but like those two ships passing in the night, ephemeral and at some unavoidable distance. One could say--and I think we'll all felt this--that the two are soul mates separated by an implacable difference in age who by chance experience an intimation of their love together, and then it is gone.I also liked the behavior in which Nelly says she has done something and then, only after she has said she has done it, does she do it! At first she rejects Arnaud's financial help. Then she tells her husband that she has gotten this money from an older man, gratis, and only then does she accept the money. Later in the film she tells Arnaud that she spent the night with the editor when she has not, and then afterwards, she does spend the night with him. Interesting psychology. I have actually known someone who would do that. It is like trying out an action to see how it is received before doing it! There is one rather serious problem with this DVD. On my Samsung flat screen TV only the first line of the subtitles could be read. Only the very top of the second line appeared, forcing me to miss some of the subtleties of the dialogue. I understand this is in the DVD since other reviewers have reported the same problem.See this for Michel Serrault, whose credits in 12-point type are longer than my arm (IMDb lists 155 as an actor) and for Emmanuelle Beart whose unique beauty is unforgettable.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Henry Fields I guess the main reason for "Nelly" to be one of the most popular Eruopean movies of the last years is the presence of the Goddess Beart in each and every one of the sequences: her eyes, her mouth, her perfection. Without any make-up, without wonderful dresses... she does not need anything but her natural beauty to make Mr. Arnaud to fall in love her. He hires her as a personal assistant while he's writing his memoirs, but she'll end up being his closest confident. The connection between both of them is neither sexual nor platonic... it's something else. Maybe they're just kindred spirits that meet each other at the wrong time: he knows she's too young and beautiful to stay with him. It doesn't matter if she'd be willing to begin a relationship with Arnaud, 'cause the truth is that he won't let her beauty to fade in the company of an old man which has anything but memories.This is a sober and reflexive movie, that doesn't live up to its world wide fame (in my opinion); but, as I said before, the presence of Emmanuelle Beart worth watching it.*My rate: 7/10