Florence Thomassin Movies

A teenager forced into a new life finds it takes some unexpected turns in this offbeat coming of age drama from France. Life is not been good for sixteen year old Martial (Francois Civil) since his free-spirited mother (Florence Thomassin) broke up with his self-centered dad (Thomas Cerisola). Martial and his mother have moved into a small and shabby apartment in a different town, and his new schoolmates immediately show an open and violent hostility towards him. But Martial does make two new friends: Colette (Marine Barbosa) and Ernestine (Karine Barbosa), a pair of mysterious but beautiful twin sisters who have a strong reckless streak. Martial and the twins begin skipping school and passing their time by sneaking into people's homes, swiping booze and smoking marijuana when they can get it. It doesn't take long before they graduate from petty crime into more serious stuff, and Martial's occasional make-out sessions with Colette and Ernestine make way for a precocious three-way sexual relationship. As the police become aware of the delinquent threesome, the twins run away from home and hide out with Martial at his place, where his lackadaisical mother barely notices anything unusual is happening. Soit je meurs, soit je vais mieux (aka Dying Or Feeling Better) also stars Valerie Lang and Emile Berling. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Stephane Allagnon's crime comedy Before the Storm stars Jonathan Zaccai as Frank, a tech worker assigned to fix the aged computer system of a store after a weather incident knocked it out. During the work, he uncovers a piece of code that embezzled money from the company. When the number one suspect turns up dead, Frank finds himself trying to piece together who is responsible with the help of some quirky locals. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

An innocent man is on the run after he's accused of murder and his spouse seemingly returns from the grave in this thriller from France. Alex Beck (François Cluzet) is a doctor who has slowly been putting his life back together after his wife Margot was murdered by a serial killer. Eight years on, Alex is doing well enough until he finds himself implicated in the murder of two people, with plenty of evidence pointing to him as the killer even though he knows nothing of the crimes. The same day, Alex receives an e-mail that appears to be from Margot (Marie-Josée Croze), which includes a link to a video clip that seems to be recent and features his late wife looking alive and well. Margot's message warns Alex that they are both being watched, and he struggles to stay one step ahead of the law as a gang of strong-arm men intimidate Alex's friends into telling whatever they might know about him. Alex's sister Anne (Marina Hands) persuades her well-to-do lover Helene (Kristin Scott Thomas) to hire a well respected attorney, Elisabeth Feldman (Nathalie Baye), to handle Alex's case. While Elisabeth tries to keep Alex out of jail, she learns that her client has a warrant out for his arrest, and Alex goes on the lam while he and his lawyer struggle to find out the truth about the murder as well as Margot's reappearance. Tell No One (aka Ne Le Dis a Personne) was based on the international best-selling novel by Harlan Coben. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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, Rovi

A waiter discovers that good taste can be dangerous in this offbeat psychological drama from France. Nicolas (Jean-Pierre Lorit) is a young man living in bohemian poverty in Lyon, sharing a flat with his girlfriend Beatrice (Florence Thomassin) and three of their friends. Nicolas works part-time as a server, and one night a customer asks him to taste his hors d'oeuvres and see if he can identity the ingredients. Nicolas' palate meets the challenge, and the customer introduces himself as Frederic Delamont (Bernard Giraudeau), a wealthy business tycoon. Frederic hires Nicolas as his official food taster at a handsome salary. Frederic also discovers that Nicolas wears the same size shoes and suits, and he begins costuming Nicolas in his cast-offs. While Beatrice isn't comfortable with their newly luxurious lifestyle, Nicolas takes to it readily, until he becomes seriously ill after eating chemically-tainted seafood. It seems that Frederic loathes seafood, and wanted to condition Nicolas to hate it too -- this was to be the first step toward turning Nicolas into someone who could duplicate Frederic's likes and dislikes on all levels. Une Affaire De Gout was based on a novel by Philippe Balland. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Director Nicolas Boukhrief, who debuted with the 1995 Up Yours, returned with this French-Italian-Luxembourgian-Belgian drama in seven segments. In a variation on Schnitzler's La Ronde, each segment introduces a character seen in the next episode: In the opening, a murderer strangles a woman. A French soldier, injured in a bomb blast, is attracted to his nurse, but she's engaged to an aspiring stand-up comic. In the Paris Metro, the comedian befriends an older woman, who travels to Italy to join her impotent husband. The husband seeks excitement and finds it with a con artist who supplies sex and drugs. The young con artist's sister is an actress in porn films, and she brings the story full circle when she meets the murderer from the first scene. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

A little philosophy can be a dangerous thing. Especially if it comes from the sudden blinding insights of the none too bright. Such insights, based upon totally illogical conclusions form the basis of this devilishly dark, distorted French absurdist comedy. At the beginning of the eccentric tale, a noted author deliberately drives his car into a brick wall, a suicide method employed by the protagonist of his last novel. Taxi driver Evangila and her brother North are deeply upset their favorite author's sudden death. They discuss the deeper implications of his act, and deduce that the author killed himself because he was increasingly obsessed with the notion that he was actually a character in someone else's novel. Finding their conclusion perfectly sound, the duo make the next logic leap and decide that they too are literary characters in someone else's book. That being the case, then all responsibility for their actions lies on the writer's shoulders, not theirs; therefore, they can do whatever they want with no consequence. Meanwhile the writer's bereaved widow, Karenina, decides she wants to join her husband in death. She makes several sucide attempts, but someone always 'rescues' her at the crucial moment. In desperation, she decides to simply leap from a tall bridge. As Karenina plots her demise, North and Evangela continue to wrestle with their newfound philosophy. The newest twist is that the author of their lives is in reality their god. Since he is the tangible, living being who dictates their every move, they decide to consult a priest in the hope that he can convince their Creator to meet them and answer a few burning questions. Unfortunately the priest can't help them and suggests that perhaps someone near death could provide more insight, someone about to commit suicide perhaps? Evangela and North, figuring a tall bridge is a good place to encounter a suicide immediately go to a certain bridge and end up meeting Karenina. When a spiritualist and God Himself get involved the story really goes off the deep end and that is when the fun really begins. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

With a few sly nods toward Hitchcock, this romantic French crime thriller follows book editor Pierre Duval down a ruinous road of illicit passion, treachery, mystery and murder. His fateful journey begins when his married lover Claire Jaillac tells him that she is going to move to the Moroccan wilds with her husband, an engineer who has been hired to oversee the construction of a dam. Not wanting to give up a good thing with no fight, Duval arranges to write her husband's biography and accompany them. Unfortunately Duval and Bernard Jaillac get on the plane, but Claire does not. They are not their long before Duval begins to suspect that he is the object of a deadly conspiracy. Despite his growing paranoia, Duval keeps quiet. On the day he finally decides to speak up, a plane lands and out steps Claire Jaillac. But she is not the Claire that Duval loved. This is an entirely different woman, a real stranger. This leaves Duval to begin trying to figure out his lover's true identity. The new Claire has other plans though and after she seduces Duval, she presents him with a dark plan that seals his fate. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Three French women in their 20s wrestle with their feelings about the nature of romance in this drama that chronicles their love lives over a 6 month period. The film opens with scenes that not only introduce the women, they also tell the viewer what is to become of two of them. Marie, who likes having sex with different partners, is a stockbroker. She is first seen climbing a huge tree to tell a portly office messenger of her love for him. Jeanne is married and works as a waitress. She finds her estranged husband in a restaurant. Alice, an art history student, is frigid and has low self-esteem because her father was domineering. She is first seen lying nude on a canvas. An artist pours paint upon her body. The film jumps back six months. The three women are at a local pool engaging in some post work-out girl talk. It is frank, graphic and quite sexual. Sex scenes illustrate their stories. Marie keeps sleeping around while Jeanne becomes a part-time hooker. Alice considers giving herself to a painter who creates tableaux of ecstatic naked women covered in paint. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this mildly explicit sexual drama, the lovely dancer Annabelle (Delphine Zingg) has a passionate relationship with an older man but eventually decides to devote her romantic energies to a younger man with whom she has more in common. Between sex scenes, and philosophical discussions between friends and lovers about love and relationships, the viewer is treated to shots of the lovely dancer mulling over her life at various scenic locations in Paris. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi