Running time: 112 minutes
Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Jean-Pierre Cassel
Rating 6 out of 10
Director Julian Schnabel has attempted to film what many considered the impossible with his adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby's best-selling autobiographical novel The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But he has clearly pulled it off as the film has received a host of awards and critical acclaim since it debuted at last year's Cannes Film Festival. Ronald Harwood's Oscar-nominated screenplay focuses on Bauby's prolonged period of hospitalisation after the former editor of the French edition of Elle magazine suffered a massive stroke. The attack left him in a state known as 'locked-in syndrome': although completely aware of everything going on around him, Bauby was unable to move any part of his body, save for the ability to flutter one eyelid.
The film is therefore a sort of French My Left Foot as Bauby defies medical expectation and begins work on his book through the arduous process of opening and closing his one working eyelid to represent each letter. It's certainly a testament to the human spirit and one which sections of the audience are likely to find very moving.
Harwood is going through a late golden period as a writer (he is 73), after picking up an Oscar for Polanski's The Pianist and being a frontrunner for his latest work. He wisely decides to keep his script in French, adding to the authenticity of the occasion. In the lead role Mathieu Amalric delivers a breakout performance which is likely to be consolidated by his upcoming role as the baddie in the next Bond movie.
Yet for all of its undoubted sincerity some audiences may find this a bleak affair. It takes time to get used to the first person camera view that Schabel employs to show life from Bauby's personal prison, and some of the metaphors he uses are heavy-handed. As a result it's an admirable work, but one which doesn't quite succeed in being as moving as it might be.
Paul Hurley
