Clovis Cornillac Movies
- 2003
French filmmaker Sam Karmann directs the crime drama A La Petite Semaine (Nickel and Dime), co-written with actual ex-con Desir Carre. When fiftysomething Jacques (Gerard Lanvin) gets released after serving five years in prison, he goes right to his local hangout and reunites with his old hoodlum friends in a working-class section of Montmarte. His friend Francis (Jacques Gamblin) has been taking acting classes, living with his mother (Liliane Rovere), and dating the waitress Camille (Julie Durand). His other friend, small-time crook Didier (Clovis Cornillac),has been gambling a lot, event though he and his wife Josiane (Sarah Haxaire) are expecting a baby. To the dismay of head criminal Marcel (Etienne Chicot), Jacques doesn't want to continue with a life of crime. A La Petite Semaine also stars Philippe Nahon as the bartender. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Lanvin, Jacques Gamblin, (more)
Audrey Tautou, who rose to international stardom with the title role in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's worldwide smash Amélie, reunites with the director for this drama, set during the darkest days of World War I and its immediate aftermath. Mathilde (Tautou) is a pretty but frail young women who was left with a bad leg after a childhood bout with polio. Mathilde lives in a small French village with her Aunt Bénédicte (Chantal Neuwirth) and Uncle Sylvain (Dominique Pinon), and is engaged to marry Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), the son of a lighthouse keeper who is fighting with the army near the German front. Manech is one of five soldiers who have been accused of injuring themselves in order to be sent home; in order to discourage similar behavior among their comrades, Manech and the other soldiers are sentenced to death, and the condemned men are marched into the no man's land between the French and German lines, where they are certain to be killed. Mathilde receives word of Manech's death, but in her heart she believes that if the man she loved had been killed, she would know it and feel it. Convinced he's still alive somewhere, Mathilde hires a private detective (Ticky Holgado) shortly after the end of the war, and together they set out to find the missing Manech. Jodie Foster appears in a supporting role as a Polish expatriate living in France. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, (more)
- 2008
Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's internationally popular cartoon characters Asterix and Obelix take on the world of athletics in this live-action comedy-adventure. It's 50 B.C., and short but wily Asterix (Clovis Cornillac) and his rotund sidekick Obelix (Gerard Depardieu) hit the road for Rome, where they hope to compete in the Olympic Games. Obelix figures he's a sure bet for a weight-lifting medal until he learns his special strength elixir is against the rules, and Asterix is soon distracted by the behind-the-scenes chicanery. Princess Irina (Vanessa Hessler), a beautiful member of the Greek royal family, is being wooed by well-meaning Lovesix (Stephane Rousseau), who is using love poems stolen from Obelix to win her heart, and untrustworthy Brutus (Benoit Poelvoorde), whose father is the Roman emperor Julius Caesar (Alain Delon). Brutus is eager to take over the throne from his father, and keeps trying to kill Caesar off to speed up the process. Asterix Aux Jeux Olympiques (aka Asterix At The Olympic Games) also features cameo appearances from a number of European sports stars, including Zinedine Zidane, Michael Schumacher and Tony Parker. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clovis Cornillac, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 2009
Two leading figures in the French cinema, actor Gerard Depardieu and director Claude Chabrol, collaborate for the first time in this breezy whodunit. Paul Bellamy (Depardieu) is a French police detective whose wife Francoise (Marie Bunel) has managed to persuade him to take a vacation for the first time in years. While she's enjoying the sights in Nimes, he's itchy to get back to work, but as it happens crime follows him to the hotel where he's staying. A fellow guest, Noel Gentil (Jacques Gamblin), confesses to a very unusual murder -- Gentil has had plastic surgery to heighten his resemblance to a homeless man, who Gentil and his wife planned to murder as part of an insurance scam. However, the scheme fell apart when Gentil's wife discovered he was having an affair, and now he's responsible for the death of an innocent man. While Gentil admits his guilt, Bellamy thinks something isn't right about his story, and he sets out to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, Bellamy has to deal with an unwanted distraction in the form of his half-brother Jacques (Clovis Cornillac), who is addicted to booze and gambling and is a constant thorn in the cop's side. Bellamy received its British premiere at the 2009 BFI London Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac, (more)
Carnage, an example of what the French call un film chorale, tells several intertwining stories. In the central tale, a young second-generation bullfighter, Victor (Julien Lescarret), is gored, and is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. A little girl, Winnie (Raphaëlle Molinier), sits next to a massive Great Dane and watches the fateful bullfight on television, and becomes obsessed with the bull. A university researcher, Jacques (Jacques Gamblin of Safe Conduct), cheats on his massively pregnant wife, Betty (Lio), who hides a critical fact about her pregnancy from him. Jacques' brother, Luc (Bernard Sens), an amateur taxidermist, lives with their mother, Rosie (Esther Gorintin), who loves him, but withholds a family secret. Winnie's teacher, Jeanne (Lucia Sanchez), struggles to understand her neurotic mother, Alicia (Ángela Molina), when she visits. When her car is dented by a shopping cart, Carlotta (Chiara Mastroianni), a struggling actress, meets Alexis (Clovis Cornillac), a suicidal philosopher/skater who offers to lead her to the culprits. Carnage, the debut feature from writer/director Delphine Gleize, won the Sutherland Trophy at the 2002 London Film Festival and Best Screenplay at the 2002 Stockholm Film Festival. It was also shown at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Rendez-Vouz with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chiara Mastroianni, Ángela Molina, (more)
It's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys in this slick, densely plotted thriller from France. Cash (Jean Dujardin) is a suave and well-mannered outlaw who specializes in grand-scale heists that turn on carefully constructed confidence games as much as muscle. When Cash's brother and partner in crime Solal (Clovis Cornillac) is killed by members of a rival outfit who try to force their way into a carefully planned heist, Cash assembles a new crew to rob the gunmen for their ill-gotten gains. Cash joins forces with Maxime Dubreuil (Jean Reno), a gifted veteran thief who brings along his beautiful protégé Garance (Alice Taglioni). As Cash, Maxime and Garance map out plans for the robbery of a lifetime, they're joined by Julia (Valeria Golino), a beautiful woman with a full compliment of criminal skills. But what they don't know is that Julia is actually an undercover police officer who is looking to shut down Cash's operation from the inside. Cash was written and directed by Eric Besnard; it was his second feature as director after establishing himself as one of France's leading screenwriters. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Dujardin, Jean Reno, (more)
In the pit of a darkened cave, a man awakens next to a corpse and finds himself pursued by a mysterious creature. Perhaps if he can navigate the strange network of tunnels created by a company named Eden Log, he can escape with his life. But what is this vicious predator that pursues him, and why was this vast series of tunnels constructed in the first place? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clovis Cornillac, Vimala Pons, (more)
A woman struggles to hold on to the man she loves in this drama set in the 1930s from Belgian filmmaker Frédéric Fonteyne. Elisa (Emmanuelle Devos) is a housewife who is passionately devoted to her husband, Gilles (Clovis Cornillac), who works in a steel mill. Despite taking care of twin daughters and unfailingly seeing to the cooking and cleaning in their home, Elisa is as adoring of Gilles as she was on the day they met, and she eagerly tends to his ravenous sexual appetite. However, while most men would be thrilled to have a wife like Elisa, after years of marriage she begins to suspect that he might be having an affair with her sister Victorine (Laura Smet) while Elisa is pregnant with their third child. Elisa is too much in love with Gilles to leave him, but while she can accept her husband's faults, neither she nor her husband are certain if this is a casual fling or a love affair that will put an end to their relationship. La Femme de Gilles (aka Gilles' Wife) was adapted from a novel by Madeleine Bourdouxhe. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emmanuelle Devos, Clovis Cornillac, (more)
- 1999
Karnaval is set against a backdrop of intolerance and hostility in the gloomy Northern French city of Dunkirk. The story is set during carnival time, when the citizens let themselves loose for six weeks of partying, carousing and having a good time. The film centers on Larbi (Ben Abdallah), an Arab youth, and his confrontation with one of the turning points of his life. After a violent argument with his father, Larbi decides to leave the family's business and go to Marseilles for a fresh start. On his last night in the town he grew up in, he sleeps in the hallway of an apartment building, where he is disturbed by Béa (Sylvie Testud) and Christian (Clovis Cornillac), a couple having fun at the carnival. Larbi is attracted to Béa and decides to stay a few more days to try his luck. In the free atmosphere of the carnival, Larbi discovers a world that he did not know existed, a world which is about to clash with his conservative outlook, and the three lives are changed forever. First time director Thomas Vincent approached the project with a realistic perspective rooted in a social context while remaining very lyrical, an approach he admired in the films of Ken Loach. Karnaval received the Alfred Bauer Prize for a debut film at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival in 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amar Be Abdallah, Sylvie Testud, (more)
- 1998
Veteran film-theater-TV actress Myriam Boyer produced, scripted, and directed this French drama about a bitter bistro owner. In industrial Lyon of the early '50s, a widowed bar-owner (Boyer) listens to radio crime serials, reads detective magazines, and grieves for her daughter, killed two years earlier in a mineshaft accident. Consumed by her loss and unwilling to face the truth, the bar-owner becomes suspicious of the grim patrons in her drab tavern, seeking someone to blame as she contemplates revenge. Shown at the 1998 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Myriam Boyer, Bruno Boeglin, (more)
- 2006
Gallic writer-director Eric Barbier borrows Hitchcock's old premise of an innocent unjustly accused of lurid and brutal actions - with all evidence pointing inconveniently to him - for the Parisian-set thriller Le Serpent. Yvan Attal stars as Mandel, a slightly introverted photographer careening toward an ugly divorce from his affluent German wife. Back into his life waltzes Plender (Clovis Cornillac), a psychopath obsessed with obtaining vengeance on Mandel for a long-ago trauma that he believes the photographer caused during childhood. The revenge takes the form of a model who falsely accuses Mandel of rape and then turns up dead in the photographer's car - making him the number one suspect. At the same time, Plender begins to inveigle himself into the confidences of Mandel's unsuspecting family. Barbier also authored the screenplay, adapting a novel by Ted Lewis (Get Carter). ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clovis Cornillac, Yvan Attal, (more)
- 1988
Max (Wojtek Pszoniak) is a Polish Jew who survived World War II and runs a second-hand store in the suburbs of Paris. He gives war orphan Victor (Thomas Langmann) a job and a place to stay after the conflict ends. Victor and his young cronies dabble in the black market as he is ignored by his former friend, a bourgeois anti-Semitic. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wojciech Pszoniak, Thomas Langmann, (more)
Four prisoners sharing the same cramped cell make a discovery that could help them escape from even the most high security prison if it doesn't split their world wide open first. Carrere is an ambitious company director serving time for fraud, Marcus is a thirty-five year old transsexual on course to becoming a real woman, Daisy is a mentally deficient servant, and Lassalle is a sixty year old intellectual who murdered his wife of many years. Together, these lawless misfits do their best to serve their time without losing their minds. One day, after discovering a loose stone slab in their cell, the four incarcerated convicts unearth the diary of a former prisoner named Danvers who occupied the exact same cell at the turn of the century. According to the diary, there exist magic formulas so powerful than any prisoner could use them to escape. Later, when the men attempt to decipher the formulas, the entire prison becomes a terrifying cauldron of bizarre phenomena. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérald Laroche, Philippe Laudenbach, (more)
- 1994
Star crossed lovers are the focus of this French romantic comedy. Marie-Louise, an American, has come to Paris to meet her new lover, Jean-Paul who has a weekend pass from his military service post. Unfortunately they misunderstood each other's instructions and are each at different train stations. They begin desperate searches throughout the night to find each other. The are hindered by Jean-Paul's ex-lover Marie, whom he rejected. Marie will do anything to get rid of Marie-Louise and win Jean-Paul back. Marie-Louise has her own problems when Jean falls for her. Jean accidently gets her involved with the police after he is arrested on the suspicion of pickpocketing. Despite their travails, the couple still tries to find each other. In the end, they are assisted by a magical nun who finally reunites them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kate Beckinsale, Eric Ruf, (more)
- 2003
French filmmaker Catherine Corsini co-writes and directs the black comedy Mariees Mais pas Trop (The Very Merry Widows). Jane Birkin stars as Renee, a femme fatale with a knack for making herself into a wealthy widow. Just as her latest husband's death is being investigated by insurance agent Thomas (Jeremie Elkaim), her long-lost orphaned granddaughter Laurence (Emilie Dequenne) has come looking for a place to stay. The grandmother is soon teaching the young girl everything she knows about marrying rich men on the verge of death. After Laurence meets a few of the local men, she realizes the inherent romantic possibilities with Thomas. Meanwhile, Renee actually finds herself developing real feelings for a man named Maurice (Pierre Richard). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Birkin, Émilie Dequenne, (more)
- 2004
In this tart comedy from France, Raphael (Edouard Baer) is a glib but talented author who has built a career out of ghost-writing autobiographies for a variety of celebrities. Raphael is also happily dating Muriel (Marie-Josée Croze), a successful architect, but that begins to change when he begins his latest project, a book on soccer superstar Kevin (Clovis Cornillac). While wading through Kevin's monumental ego and strange creative notions is a challenge in itself, what really sets Raphael's mind off course is the discovery that Kevin is dating Claire (Alice Taglioni), the object of Raphael's unrequited affection while he was in college. Raphael is suddenly determined to win Claire away from Kevin, though he hasn't figured out how to do this without alienating his wife and his client. Mensonges et Trahisons et Plus Si Affinité (released in English-speaking territories as The Story of My Life) was screened in competition at the 2004 Avignon Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
A star is born in a time of both celebration and instability in this historical drama with music from director Christophe Barratier. In the spring of 1936, Paris is in a state of uncertainty; while the rise of the Third Reich in Germany worries many, a leftist union-oriented candidate, Léon Blum, has been voted into power, and organized labor is feeling its new power by standing up to management. While such matters might normally seem unimportant to Germain Pigoil (Gérard Jugnot), who runs a small vaudeville house in the Faubourg district, the chaos of the city seems to be impacting his life and his work -- his wife, Viviane (Elisabeth Vitali), has run off with her lover, she demands custody of their son, Jojo (Maxence Perrin), and unscrupulous local entrepreneur Galapiat (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) threatens to put Germain's theater out of business. With the help of a local political organizer, Milou (Clovis Cornillac), and veteran entertainer Jacky Jacquet (Kad Merad), Germain strikes a deal with Galapiat to reopen the theater, but business is slow until a lovely young woman with a remarkable voice, Douce (Nora Arnezeder), comes looking for a spot in Germain's show. Faubourg 36 (aka Paris 36) received its North American premiere at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Jugnot, Clovis Cornillac, (more)
- 1993
The sorry story of the Vichy government of France from 1940 to 1945 is the subject of this thoughtful historical drama. In return for a swift surrender in 1940, the French government was allowed to retain, in Vichy an unoccupied portion of the country. There, at the Hotel du Parc, the government enacted and carried out its own decrees, which paralleled the Nazi persecution of Jews elsewhere. While the film itself simply tells its story in a straightforward manner that reviewers found quite creditable, it is remarkable for the fact that it was actually made and released. Why? Because it punctures the convenient illusions so many had constructed about the period, and reveals that far from being coerced into cooperating with the Germans, a large number (perhaps a majority) of Frenchmen were quite enthusiastic. In fact, the producer found it extremely difficult to get anyone to cooperate in making the film, and it took him over six years to bring together the resources to begin shooting. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Dufilho, Jean Yanne, (more)
