Coup de Chance

Set in the upper-class echelons of Paris and written, acted and filmed entirely in French, the title Coup de Chance translates as “stroke of luck,” and that’s exactly what it is, restoring the masterful filmmaker to his deserved position as one of the screen’s most profound storytellers.

The film is at once among Woody Allen’s most economical works and one of his most free-spirited.

This slight-but-winning confection will have little effect on the controversial director’s galvanizing public image but, after a string of stuffy disappointments, Coup de Chance will offer comfort to the filmmaker’s many completists – especially given Allen’s intimation that this 50th film might well be his last.

Allen has suggested that “Coup de Chance,” his fiftieth feature, may be his last; if so, he goes out with a self-excoriating bang.

Coup de Chance is more sketched-in than satisfyingly detailed. Most of the characters are types, and despite some local color, the story might as well play out in New York, but it’s amusing, technically adept and looks like a professionally made movie (no small thing in the streaming age).

The strong, credible performances oil the wheels during these clattering shifts of gear and serve to distract from its occasional moments of implausibility.

This mostly competent but largely uninteresting, bordering-on-silly work upholds the Allen tradition of just carrying on as usual

If I had to come up with one word to describe writer-director Woody Allen’s latest film, it would have to be “inconsequential.” This flat, uninspired slog about the trophy wife (Lou de Laâge) of an overly possessive well-to-do Parisian businessman (Melvil Poupaud) who has an affair after a chance meeting with one of her old classmates (Niels Schneider) is close to a career low point for the famed auteur. The picture’s wooden characters routinely spout trite, at times laughable dialogue peppered with nonchalant references about privileged upscale living and obvious, shallow observations about art, poetry and culture. Then, of course, there are the tired discussions about the role that luck plays in our lives that have now been incorporated into the scripts in nearly all of Allen’s 50 films. Even the narrative feels like a retread of previous releases with elements that appear to have been culled from such offerings as “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989), “Match Point” (2005) and “Irrational Man” (2015), only rearranged in a lighter, less interesting configuration of those other finer works – and one with an uncharacteristic and eminently predictable ending at that. The picture’s French language script is perhaps the only distinguishing trait of this work, but that adds precious little to the finished product (except perhaps for the eye strain that viewers are likely to walk away with for having to read everything). Don’t get me wrong – Allen is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, but this release (like many of those in recent years) is not one of his better efforts. In fact, it’s been speculated (even by the director himself) that this could be his last picture, and it’s a shame if this is how he were to end his filmmaking career, going out with a whimper instead of a bang. But, if the gas tank is empty by this point, better to quit now than to continue producing mediocre, forgettable pictures that detract from an otherwise-great body of work.

(Mauro Lanari) Since when is Allen no longer the same as in "Getting Even" ('71) and "Without Feathers" ('75), the one full of self-irony and with now classic aphorisms on the cosmic condition? Since when is he instead an exponent of cosmopolitan high society that he describes less and less in order to cynically despise it more and more? Nobody forces him to frequent it. Perhaps he needs it to fill his latest book "Apropos of Nothing" (2020) with 400 pages of self-indulgent autobiographical anecdotes. The same goes for this film in which the theorem reduces the protagonists to basic figures. As the closing line puts it: "Better not to to think too much about it." Hancock's "Cantaloupe" or Us3's "Cantaloop" in heavy rotation contributes to exhaustion.

Attractive characters and good villain but the film was choppy, predictable, and the ending farfetched. Cool music and Cinematography. However, and forgive me Coleridge, I was unable to suspend my disbelief and barely had a chuckle. The character of Jean, bore a stark resemblance to the conniving sinister husband, Jean Paul, in the far superior Sharon Horgan series, "Bad Sisters" a black-comedy who-done-it about the death of Jean-Paul that actually had an unpredictable ending. Seeing Bad Sisters first probably influenced my reaction. If you're a French speaker, perhaps the dialog is snappier in French. The film seems to be the formulaic product of an infertile imagination, albeit with charm and screen presence.