Starring Omar Sharif, Pierre Boulanger. Written and directed by François Dupeyron. (STC) 94 min. Opens Mar 12.
Based on his performance in the French drama Monsieur Ibrahim, Omar Sharif may successfully be cast as Yoda in the next Star Wars
film. Sage and stooped despite his height, the Islamic shopkeeper of
the title is a sort of banal Jedi master. Except that instead of
peddling the Force, he dispenses homilies from his trusty Koran.
Sharif, seemingly walking the comeback trail, can also be seen this month in Hidalgo,
although his maladroit performances in both films reinforce the
difference between being prolific and just suddenly busy. Despite his
famous (and now craggy) Cheshire cat grin, he's frankly out-acted here
by his young co-star, Pierre Boulanger. Boulanger plays Momo, a
burgeoning juvenile delinquent in 1960s Paris struggling to cope with a
distant father and absentee mother -- not to mention some seriously
raging hormones, which invariably provide coming-of-age dramas with
their narrative impetus.
François Dupeyron's film is set in an
explicitly movie-land Paris where the prostitutes are always glamorous
and nurturing, and Brigitte Bardot look-alikes pout their way through
open movie shoots. When he's not scoping out the babes, Momo hangs out
at Monsieur Ibrahim's corner store, where much epigrammatic wisdom is
enthusiastically dispensed.
The movie has weightier matters on its mind than mere
cross-generational bonding, however, and fate (also known as
"contrivance") sends the pair away from Gay Paree when the time comes
for their shared journey of discovery. The destination is Turkey,
ostensibly to rediscover M. Ibrahim's roots (which is odd since he
rarely shuts up about his connection to his culture). No matter: the
reasons for this trip have only to do with adhering to the
upper-middlebrow festival-film template, which states that the only
lessons worth learning occur someplace photogenic. These final scenes
are lovely to look at, but otherwise interminable, bludgeoning what had
been a disposable (if affable) prestige trifle into an audience orgy of
eye-rolling and watch-checking.