Une Femme est Une Femme

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Une Femme est Une Femme details the rocky relationship between Anna Karina’s Angela and Jean-Claude Brialy’s Émile and the ongoing arguments that ensue after Angela announces that she wants to have a baby. (Jean-Paul Belmondo rounds out the cast as a friend of the couple who is unapologetically in love with Angela.) There’s little doubt that Une Femme est Une Femme fares best in its lighthearted and thoroughly promising opening stretch, as filmmaker Godard, working from his own screenplay, delivers a playful romcom that certainly benefits quite substantially from its eye-candy-like visuals and the superb efforts of its three stars – with, especially, Karina turning in an effervescent performance that generally remains a highlight within the progressively erratic proceedings. It’s clear, then, that the picture’s downward spiral is triggered by a substance-free midsection devoted almost entirely to predictable (and thoroughly eye-rolling) avant-garde elements, as Godard ham-handedly pokes fun at the various conventions and cliches one generally associates with movies of this ilk – with the repetitive and overly obvious nature of such interludes slowly-but-surely draining the viewer’s waning interest. (And it doesn’t help, certainly, that the actors increasingly find themselves trapped within the context of deadpan, one-note caricatures.) The interminable closing stretch only cements Une Femme est Une Femme‘s place as a prototypically useless endeavor from Godard, which is a shame, undoubtedly, given the palpable potential contained within the film’s decent first act.

* out of ****

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