Parky At the Pictures (3/10/2025)

(Reviews of Paul & Paulette Take a Bath; Better Days; and A Night Like This)

PAUL & PAULETTE TAKE A BATH.

It has always baffled why film directors make so little use of the shorts that helped them get established. Many of these will have done the rounds of the festival circuit, where they get lauded by the trade press. But they rarely get seen by ordinary viewers because they are squirreled away in the hope of future monetisation when they should be made available online so that anyone spending their hard-earned on a first-time feature (particularly one that has been expanded from an existing short) can see how the debutant's style developed. It shouldn't take much for directors (young and old) to post these outings on their own websites or on platforms like Vimeo, in the absence of a MUBI-style showcase for shorts. Otherwise, they will simply disappear into the ether and that benefits no one.

Think how good it would be, for example, to have seen the likes of Trauma Industries (2017), Madame Grenier's Toaster, and Never Apply Salt to Attract a Potential Lover (both 2020) before watching neophyte Jethro Massey's highly distinctive and critically divisive, Paul & Paulette Take a Bath. Ah, well!

Following `once upon a time' voiceover introductions, American photographer, Paul (Jérémie Galiana), spots French girl, Paulette (Marie Benati), recreating Marie Antoinette's final steps towards the guillotine in the Place de la Concorde. He accompanies her to La Conciergerie in order to cut her long hair at the neck so that Paulette can not just replicate the events of 16 October 1793, but also so that she can actually feel them. Taking his number (but withholding her own) after her re-enactment is over, Paulette sashays away with a vague promise to attend Paul's exhibition the following Tuesday.

No one comes to the show, so Paul sells his camera so he can buy a suit to start work as an estate agent. He discovers the boss is nicknamed `Goebbels' and is appalled to discover she is old flame, Valérie (Laurence Vaissière), who still holds a torch for him. He hangs out by the Marie Antoinette plaque hoping to bump into Paulette, but she is living out of a suitcase after being dumped by her girlfriend, Margarita (Margot Joseph), who is a Marilyn Monroe impersonator.

As she has taken a room at 3 Rue Tronson-du-Coudray - which now belongs to her ex, George (James Gerard) - Paulette uses the dial phone to call Paul and ask him to help her re-stage the 1889 strangulation and dismemberment of Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé by Gabrielle Bompard and her accomplice, Michel Eyraud. Sporting a Marilyn wig and a white towelling bathrobe, Paulette teases Paul and warns him not to touch her, as they bask in the post-homicidal glow on the divan.

Next morning, they visit a church so that Paul can taste a communion wafer (after Paulette had confessed to being raised a Catholic). He concurs that the host tastes of `blood and tears, with a hint of pine' and they try others to determine the flavours of Elvis Presley, Genghis Khan, Kim Jong-un, and Adolf Hitler. Paulette shows Paul a photo she keeps in her purse of the young Stalin and admits she would have had his babies.

When she can't find a crime scene to visit, Paul takes Paulette to the see the Mur des Fédérés in Père Lachaise, where 147 Communards were executed on 28 May 1871. He shows her the bas-relief carving on some of the original bricks and crumples to the floor above the mass grave when she shoots him with an imaginary rifle. As the day wears on, Paul tells Paulette about the Graceland maid who collected Elvis's pubic hairs from his bathtub and tried to sell them after he died.

After sleeping with his boss because he feels sorry for her when she's not invited to office drinks, Paul makes excuses to join Paulette at a cabaret bar, where he realises how much she loves Margarita. She crashes on his sofa and calls him a nice man, having described him to her friends at the club as her `victim'. He teases her that putting on a show all the time must be exhausting.

The next day, Paul takes Paulette to the Jardin d'Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne, where various ethnological exhibitions were presented between 1877-1912. But Paul calls them human zoos in condemning them and the mood of the place makes Paulette sad. She reflects on how living with Margarita had not worked out and she climbs a fence to sit outside a cottage and have him treat her like a dull exhibit as he walks past. Paulette rewards Paul with a kiss on the cheek and an invitation to drive her to Saltzburg to meet her parents (something she had denied Margarita).

They travel in a Volkswagen and make love in a hotel room en route to Munich, where Paul has arranged for them to stay in the flat at Prinzregentenplatz 16, where Adolf Hitler lived with Eva Braun. Like Lee Miller before them, they try the bathtub and Paulette reveals that her father had killed a man and had gone to prison when she was a child. In bed afterwards, she asks Paul not to behave like a boyfriend when he meets Gilles (Gilles Graveleau) and Charlotte (Fanny Cottençon). She also insists that he doesn't try to put her on a pedestal.

While Paulette takes a shower, Paul finds an old camera and makes her pose on a pedestal. They make love, only for Charlotte to walk in on them and Paulette isn't amused. She argues with her mother over supper about her capricious nature and tells Paul about her father killing someone who had been abusing her as a child. At breakfast, Paulette comes out as a lesbian and appals Charlotte who blames Gilles for their child going off the rails.

Paul is embarrassed and hurt and reveals that the Munich flat hadn't really been Hitler's when Paulette declares their brief, but delicious moment to be over. She insists they shares a room on the way home, but Paul is frosty when she tries to cuddle up to him. Returning to Paris, they pass the Bataclan and the spot where Chief of Police Maurice Papon (the former Nazi collaborator who had also deported Jews) had some of the dozens of Algerians massacred during the autumn of 1961 thrown into the Seine.

It's here that Paulette chooses to say goodbye and she gifts Paul her camera. He uses it to take pictures of Valérie, but ultimately asks her if they can just be friends. She treats him curtly at work, but he uses his contacts to find the apartment where Bataclan killer Salah Abdeslam lived before the attack on 13 November 2015. Wanting to make a grand gesture of love, he shaves his pubic hairs and tries to glue on those of Elvis Presley, which he has bought online. He invites Paulette, but is in tears when she arrives, as he has realised that, while he loves her, she is not for him. She lets him down gently and they chat about her flavour with Margarita.

Seeking to subvert romcom convention by borrowing its key facets and putting a morbid spin on them, Jethro Massey does a decent job in trying to meld Jacques Rivette's Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974) and Richard Linklater's Before trilogy (1995-2013). However, by contenting himself in filming in some of Paris's darker corners and mentioning the crimes committed there, he fails to delve into the significance of the atrocities and what they say about France in general and Paulette and Paul in particular. Indeed, there's these ghoulishly touristy visits come close to seeming like an affectation, unlike Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon's genuine fascination with funerals in Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude (1971).

The scripting is at its smuggest during these episodes, notably the glib line about Papon being an `equal opportunities monster'. But it doesn't help that Marie Benati and Jérémie Galiana struggle to avoid sounding like they're reading off cue cards, as they deliver their Wiki-précis. Massey also fails to make the connection between Paulette's fixation and her own trauma and the fact that Paul also appears to miss this point makes him seem a bit more of an insecure clod than he already is.

With his 1970s Paul Simon hairstyle and dour demeanour, Paul interacts awkwardly with everyone he meets - his treatment of Valérie is booishly chauvinistic - and his infatuation initially feels more stalkerish than puppyish, as he tries to follow up what might be called the `meet macabre' on the Place de la Concorde. Benati gives much the better performance, as the manic pixie dream fille, but Paulette is just as sketchily drawn as Paul, with her passion for the barely limned Margarita being much less convincing than her melancholic vulnerability.

The supporting roles (all taken by white actors) are actually a thankless task because Massey treats them as little more than plot pawns. But the Parisian shock spots he selects for the pilgrimages (with an emphasis on the `grim') have been evocatively photographed by Ole Marius Dahl and Isarr Eiriksson in a freewheeling style that irresistibly recalls the early nouvelle vague. Yet, this also brings to mind both the Zanzibar films of Philippe Garrel and Emmanuelle Mouret's bittersweet romcoms. With several Marc Tassell songs being dotted around and the principals wearing knowingly chic Joanna Wojtowicz costumes, this superficial concoction is easy to enjoy (providing you're not too squeamish about the glibly exploitative use of tragic crime locations) and it will be intriguing to see what Massey does next. He might even make his shorts available. Who knows?

BETTER DAYS.

Those who enjoyed Valérie Bonneton's winning display as Mother Véronique in Laurent Tirard's bicycling nuns comedy, Oh My Goodness!, will be intrigued to see her take on a weightier role in Better Days, Elsa Bennett and Hippolyte Dard's drama about female alcoholics.

Widowed mother of three, Suzanne (Valérie Bonneton), is forced into rehab after crashing her car on the school run. She has been siphoning vodka from a secret stash into water bottles for some time, but insists she only has the occasional glass of wine with dinner when she's examined by Dr Mathis (Myriem Akheddiou).

She conducts the group therapy sessions, in which Suzanne keeps quiet because she doesn't think she had much in common with serial relapser Chantal (Sophia Leboutte), party girl Alice (Sabrina Ouazani), or famous actress Diane (Michèle Laroque), who is more worried about her daughter's imminent wedding than sobering up and keeps using the facility's only payphone when Suzanne wants to call her kids. Their grandmother shields them from her, however, and she is low spirits when she attends a therapy class on motor maintenance run by reformed drinker, Denis (Clovis Cornillac).

He has entered the centre in the Rally of the Dunes in North Africa and has to keep reassuring Dr Mathis that the adventure will do the chosen women the power of good, providing he can find someone to sponsor the car. In the meantime, he runs sessions in the garage, where Diane faints because she is finding it hard to accept her situation. Suzanne pals up with Alice, who reveals that she lost her job at an old people's home after she locked the residents out while on a bender.

Dr Mathis conducts a restaurant session, in which the women have to decline booze when asked by the waitress and explain that they feel better for abstaining. The exercise is designed to remove the shame from being a female alcoholic and Suzanne realises that she needs to stop feeling sorry for herself if she is to be reunited with her brood. While she commits to the programme, Chantal warns that it's not an easy road, as this is her eleventh spell at the hostel.

Alice also feels better about herself and decides to trace her biological mother. There's a fuss when someone finds a beer can in the camper van that Denis has borrowed for the women to work on and Suzanne feels sufficiently sorry for him to offer her help (as an expert seamstress) in making special jackets for the rally team. She also throws herself into a stress-relieving punchbag session and a nocturnal camping exercise and is thrilled when she wins a marker race with Alice and Diane as her navigators.

Taking a detour on the way back to the clinic, Suzanne asks Diane to pose as a saleswoman so that she can see her children on the doorstep. But Diane suffers a relapse after daughter Léa (Adèle Sierra) makes a scene in reception while telling her to stay away from the wedding. Alice and Suzanne discover the stash of miniatures that Diane has smuggled in her suitcase and vow to be more supportive. Dr Mathis shows the group how to make mocktails and they experiment with combinations before a fitness montage shows the group going through their paces prior to Denis announcing the rally trio.

Just as she starts to see light at the end of the tunnel, however, Suzanne learns that custody of her kids has been awarded to her mother-in-law and she has a major relapse that results in Denis having to vouch for her so that she can join Alice and Diane in Morocco. Chantal was also supposed to be accompanying them as first reserve, but she gets drunk at the ferry terminal and has to be escorted home.

A row breaks out after Alice misses the first checkpoint in the desert and tempers fray further when the car rolls down an incline. But Denis gives Suzanne a pep talks and she realises he likes her when he reveals that he bought and sponsored the car himself, as he has already failed to save one woman he loved. A better day follows, when they come across some local kids and Diane is delighted when they recognise her from her films. However, the mood changes when Diane collapses back at base camp and the doctor informs her that it would be suicide to try and continue.

Determined to go on after Diane is airlifted home, Suzanne and Alice rise up the standings. However, they flip the car when the wheel strikes an obstruction and they have to be rescued. They are applauded by everyone at the camp, even though they don't get to complete the course. The pair are also warmly welcomed at the hospice and Suzanne is allowed to see her children. Still in her hospital bed, Diane is introduced to her granddaughter, while Alice goes to meet her birth mother with a pasta necklace like the one Suzanne cherishes. She finds herself helping Denis run the activities programme, as he prepares to teach the next batch of rehabbers hot-air ballooning.

Well intentioned and admirably played, this is a thoughtful and, at times, grittily realistic insight into problem drinking among women. In addition to showing how alcoholism knows no class barriers co-directors Bennett and Dard, along with fellow writer Louis-Julien Petit, examine the particular stigma attached to mothers, who seem to be held to higher standards than other members of society. The insults about motherhood that Suzanne, Diane, and Alice trade in the desert get to the heart of the matter, but the rally section is the weakest part of the film, as its very far-fetchedness magnifies its myriad contrivances.

The more intimate moments at the rehab centre are more impactful, as the loneliness and despair of the addicted drinker are laid bare with insight and sensitivity. Valérie Bonneton is particularly good in the initial sequences in which Suzanne remains in denial, but her friendships with Alice and Diane are markedly more convincing than her hesitant romance with Denis. Sabrina Ouazani isn't given enough to do, as her absent mother subplot largely unfolds off screen. But Michèle Laroque is splendid as the grande dame whose private pain becomes all-too-public in the rather forced reception shouting match and whose pleasure at being recognised by some desert children is touchingly authentic, as she poses for photos.

Avoiding sentimentality, this joins a growing number of worthy features about addition to drink and/or drugs. Yet, by making the intake at the clinic so large, Bennett and Dard are forced to leave a lot of characters on the margins - and these are perhaps the ones more deserving of the film's attention than those chosen to go gallivanting around in the Sahara.

A NIGHT LIKE THIS.

Why on earth would anyone release a film set during the festive period in the first week of autumn? Side-stepping this poser, there's plenty to like about Liam Calvert's debut feature, as it puts a queer spin on the format that Richard Linklater perfected three decades ago in Before Sunrise (1995). Frustratingly, though, there's also a good deal to underwhelm.

On Christmas Eve, Lukas (Jack Brett Anderson) is contemplating jumping off a London bridge when he has second thoughts. He wanders into a bar called Take Courage and is nursing a pint when Oliver (Alexander Lincoln) blunders in and steals it. A gay German actor, who has just started working in a café while waiting for news on a major audition, Lukas is dismayed when he bumps into Oliver on the top deck of his bus home. Carrying a guitar and eager to share his life story, Oliver confides that he is a nightclub owner who is hoping that his late father has left him enough in his will to pay off some debts.

Against his better judgement, Lukas agrees to get off the bus and accompany Oliver to his favourite jazz club. As they chat, Oliver gets a text informing him that his father has left his money to his trophy wife and he bolts into the gents to snort a line of cocaine in order to overcome a panic attack. Back at the table, he wonders whether it's okay to do something bad to bring about something good before urging Lukas to talk about himself. He's not far into an anecdote about his first day as a barista when Oliver interrupts to tell him the story of King Ferdinand of Naples, who ordered his crew to unleash the cannon against a foe only to be informed that their ship didn't have any guns.

Explaining the message that you need to back up a boast, Oliver suggests that the forge a pact to stay together until 8am and treat each other as honest strangers who will listen and not judge in the knowledge that they will never meet again. Over chips, Lukas agrees and they wander into the night, with Oliver telling a story about busking in the fog when someone dropped a pound coin on the pavement and he had the eerie feeling it had been his recently deceased father trying to reassure him.

Having been chased for mocking a gym bunny through the window, the duo run into Daniel (Jimmy Ericson), a Scouse scally who bums a smoke and tells them how he ended up on the streets. He follows Oliver and Lukas to a country club, where Emma (Beth Rylance) informs them that the shutters will come down for good at the end of the night. Lukas urges Oliver to play a number on stage and gnarled owner, John (David Bradley), nods in assent after Oliver recognises a reference to John Denver's `Take Me Home, Country Roads' behind the bar.

Oliver's song goes down so well that they're invited to stay for a drink. John laments that life is brutish and short, although Daniel scoffs that they all live in a world of fairytales and lullabies. They concur that love enables one to live forever by passing a spark on to someone else. But Oliver's sense of benevolence soon dissipates when he realises that Daniel has absconded with his wallet.

Undaunted, he takes Lukas to a silent disco and they dance among the people swaying to the music on their headsets. Suddenly, they kiss passionately and decide to go back to Oliver's place to watch Ron Underwood's Tremors (1990) on DVD. He insists on making a detour, however, and Lukas feels uneasy when he sees Oliver berating a woman on her doorstep.

Wandering into a café after Lukas expresses his disquiet, Oliver explains that he ran into debt after agreeing to let minors into his club and had run into debt because of drug dealers and a protection racket. He had hoped to persuade his stepmother to bail him out, but she had refused. Feeling that he also has to come clean, Lukas reveals that he has already had his big audition and that he had slept with the director and felt humiliated at the way he had been used.

At that moment, Daniel bursts into the café being pursued by an angry drunk (Kane Surry) who had caught him trying to steal his wallet. Lukas tries to intervene, only to be subjected to a torrent of abuse. Remaining calm, he tells the stranger the tale of King Ferdinand before punching him hard in the face and scarpering. They take Daniel to casualty because his nose has been broken, but he doesn't want to stay in case people start asking awkward questions.

Lukas is offended when Daniel uses a homophobic slur, but Oliver gives the teenage Liverpudlian his jacket to keep warm and they trade advice before parting ways. Oliver finds Lukas on the bridge and tells him off for making him worry. They stroll until 8am, when Lukas leaves to start work. Oliver encourages him not to shut himself in, as he turns to go. But he soon returns to remind Lukas that life is a miracle that should be treasured and shared.

Liam Calvert was clearly operating on a low budget and this possibly influenced his decision to make such conservative use of the camera that he leaves cinematographer-cum-editor Oliver Bury with little option but to rely on a rigid shot-reverse-shot pattern. Nevertheless, there's no excuse for the fact that this is a very white Christmas, indeed, in our supposedly bustlingly diverse capital.

This grumble also extends to the problems facing the protagonists, who have it much easier than the displaced Daniel or the hundreds of other unseens who would have been on the London streets during the course of Oliver and Lukas's peregrinations. Admittedly, they are at defining crossroads, but neither really experiences a dark night of the soul, even though the mercurial Lukas begins it with vague thoughts of ending it all after being grotesquely abused. He experiences some casual homophobia and bilious racism, but the root of his despair is isolation, as he's a long way from home in a business in which identity and self-worth are heavily dependent upon the opinion of others.

The garrulously over-sharing Oliver is less concerned by how people see him, as he has seemingly been living a self-centred existence with little thought for the consequences of his actions. He might take the lead in this melanchlic/merry dance, but he is the one with the most growing up to do and still has sizeable problems to solve, even though he winds up in a better place to deal with them.

Screenwriter Diego Scerrati leaves it up to the viewer to decide where Oliver and Lukas's relationship will go. But much of his dialogue is awkwardly on the nose and stiltedly expository. Jack Brett Anderson and Alexander Lincoln do well to give such passages existential heft and make them sound eavesdroppedly conversational. But the verbosity is hard to overlook, especially as Calvert could have lightened the load by opting to show more and tell less. But we've all yapped too much while trying to make a good impression, and, thus, for all its flaws, though, this genial and sincere entry in the Christmas Carol canon might be cut some slack.