A Difficult Year

Directed by Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, A Difficult Year follows a pair of troubled individuals (Pio Marmaï’s Bruno and Jonathan Cohen’s Albert) as they essentially infiltrate a group of activists. Filmmakers Toledano and Nakache, armed with their own screenplay, kick A Difficult Year off with an incredibly promising and stylish opening stretch that immediately captures the viewer’s interest, as the picture kicks off with a striking pre-credits sequence that gives way to a first act that effectively establishes Marmaï and Cohen’s respective figures. (There is, for example, a fascinating interlude wherein Bruno, an airline worker, retrieves the airport’s many tossed liquids and attempts to resell them to arriving passengers.) And although the movie’s midsection is similarly strewn with compelling episodes, including (and especially) a fun montage in which the aforementioned activists wreak havoc at various public events, A Difficult Year’s palpably overlong running time (120 minutes!) unfortunately does pave the way for an erratic second half that drags far more often than one might’ve liked – which, despite the uniformly charming performances and a bizarre yet thoroughly memorable finale, ultimately does confirm the picture’s place as a decent-enough endeavor in desperate need of streamlining.

**1/2 out of ****