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The Escort film review
THE ESCORT
Running time: 106 mins
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Stuart Townsend, Liza Walker
Who is the world's greatest living screen actor? Ask most people this question and the answer they give you is unlikely to be Daniel Auteuil. In fact, most people outside of France will never have heard of him. However, this Gallic champion of his craft has been wowing French audiences for over 25 years, picking up several Cesars (French Oscars) along the way. While M. Depardieu has waved the tricolour for his country on the international scene, Auteuil has been assiduously stacking up a succession of superb roles in a selection of landmark homemade films (Le Huitieme Jour, Le Bossu, La Reine Margot to name but three). If his face is known at all outside of France, it is largely thanks to his tragically brilliant performance as Ugolin in the marvellous Jean de Florette and Manon Des Sources. But all this may be about to change.
This modest year old recently announced that he would like to branch out and make films in English. Last year he appeared in our cinemas in the little seen The Lost Child, which he rescued from being little more than a pedestrian thriller. Now he returns in The Escort, a mostly English language film directed by his compatriot Michel Blanc and scripted by Hanif Kureishi. The salacious nature of the movie will hopefully attract enough punters to witness another compelling performance by Auteuil.
In The Escort, Auteuil plays Pierre, a fortysomething literature professor suffering a midlife crisis. Having left France for reasons left unexplained, he ends up in London with the ambition of writing his great novel. Unable to focus on the task in hand, he while away his ennui by taking a job in a Soho café, where he befriends Tom (Stuart Townsend). Soon he becomes Tom's flatmate, and is increasingly surprised by the number of beautiful women his housemate beds. When he eventually learns that is a gigolo and is being paid for his services, his initial reaction is one of disgust. Gradually, however, he is intrigued, and his growing lack of funds prompts him to ask if there might be a chance of some work. There is, and the transformation begins.
The sheer brilliance of Auteuil in nearly all of his roles lies in his ability to change his look and character with apparent nonchalance and complete credibility. The Escort is no exception. The nervous, weasel-like foreigner struggling with a strange tongue at the beginning of the film slowly becomes displaced by a confident, charming and charismatic man about town. He quickly becomes in high demand by the lusting desmoiselles of London town, moving into his own swish apartment, dressing from the best stores and generally enjoying the highest life. But never for one second does Auteuil hide his character's vulnerability: this is a man teetering on the brink, and when his appointments dry up and drugs become a placating and tempting option, his descent into the inevitable abyss is staggeringly portrayed.
The Escort succeeds in attempting to tell us how easy it is to slip into a completely different life. In this case, it is prostitution: the advantages of the money and the attraction it offers to many disbelieving men. But it steers clear from glamorising and recommending it as a way of life. While it may seem initially lucrative (as well as ludicrous - men being paid to sleep with beautiful women?), its realistic portrayal of the central characters' demise is enough to put off most would-be johns for life.
This is an engrossing and highly watchable film with an ending that is slightly too twee. It clearly required a central performance of some strength, and Auteuil delivers in spades. It can only be hoped that it reaches a wider audience and gives this reluctant looking superstar greater recognition.
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