The Dreamers film review

certificate_18

THE DREAMERS

With its continual references to classic Hollywood and French cinema, The Dreamers should be a film buff's paradise. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and scripted by occasional film critic and screenwriter Gilbert Adair (Love and Death on Long Island) the end results are disappointing. Far too much wallowing in its own self-importance coupled with the onanistic desires of a couple of men in their 60s make for a highly pretentious and dissatisfying experience.

The film starts brightly enough, with Matthew (Michael Pitt looking for all the world like Leonardo DiCaprio) arriving as a young naïve American in Paris in 1968. A devoted film fan, he spends all his spare time at the capital's cinematheque until the beginning of the troubles of 68 closes it down. French film fans will delight at Jean-Pierre Leaud's appearance as cinema chief Henri Langlois, Leaud being the actor of choice for both Godard and Truffaut at the time. Amidst the student protests at the cinema's closure, Matthew encounters the stunning Isabelle (Eva Green) and her brother Theo (Louis Garrel) who befriend him and ask him to move into their large Parisian flat while their parents are on holiday.

And so a peculiar menage-a-trois begins with the three young cinephiles revelling in playing question and answer games based on their knowledge of film. The games have increasingly sexual forfeits, and soon Matthew finds himself having sex with Isabelle while Theo encourages him - although only after watching Theo masturbating over a picture of his favourite Hollywood leading lady.

Adair has written a script - adapted from his own novel - far too full of knowing winks to the world of classic cinema. Bertolucci has not only taken this on board enthusiastically, but gives us three characters who are not particularly likeable. Matthew is a wet American, Isabelle simply a girl caught between her teens and adulthood, and Theo is the most unsympathetic and difficult of the bunch. There is very little for an audience to cling on to in the shape of these characters, and Bertolucci and Adair seem to revel in having their young leading actress as naked as possible for many of the scenes.