Suzanne Flon Movies

A fresh-faced orphan from the provinces labors away at the last old-fashioned café on Avenue Montaigne as the Paris theater elite prepare for the biggest night of the year in Jet Lag director Danièle Thompson's whirlwind comedy of intersecting lives. Jessica (Cécile De France) may have been orphaned at the tender age of four, but her doting grandmother (Suzanne Flon) did her best to bring the motherless girl up right. A one-time ladies' room attendant at The Ritz, Jessica's grandmother was a woman well known for her extraordinary taste. Upon arriving in Paris to work as a waitress at a modest café nestled between a renowned concert hall, a venerable theater, and a high-profile auction house, Jessica soon finds herself interacting with a curious cross section of the thriving entertainment industry. As rehearsals for the upcoming shows get under way and Jessica is assigned the task of delivering food to the hardworking actors and low-earning stagehands, she soon discovers that even the most famous of people are often forced to make difficult decisions in life.

Jean-François Lefort (Albert Dupontel) is a classical pianist whose devoted wife has him booked at venues across Europe for the next six years. As the free-spirited musician struggles to eschew the formality of his upcoming concert appearance, self-made businessman Jacques Grumberg (Claude Brasseur) takes time out from his May-December romance and his stressful medical treatment in order to auction off a collection that he has been building his entire life and reach out to his estranged intellectual son, Frédéric (Christopher Thompson). Meanwhile, back on the theater front, popular television actress Catherine Versen (Valérie Lemercier) prepares to star in a farcical play, a famous American film director (Sydney Pollack) begins auditioning actors for an upcoming film about Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and a cheerful concierge on the verge of retirement (Dani) enjoys her final stint rubbing elbows with the biggest and brightest stars in Paris. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The master of French suspense joins forces with the queen of English suspense fiction for this tense tale of the treacherous love affair between a disturbed bridesmaid and an unsuspecting young man. Philippe (Benoit Magimel) lives in a quiet French town with his hairdresser mother Christine (Aurore Clément) and two younger sisters. Soon after the news breaks about a local girl who has mysteriously vanished, Philippe's mother introduces her children to Gerard (Bernard Le Coq) -- a local businessman who may have matrimonial intentions toward the attractive beautician. Soon after receiving permission from her children to present Gerard with a sculpture of a woman's head that had previously adorned the family garden, however, the elusive beau seems to disappear without a trace. Philippe is intent on recovering the captivating piece of art, and after stealthily recovering it in a clandestine mission he places it in his closet without telling the rest of the family. Later, at his sister's wedding, Philippe meets attractive bridesmaid Senta (Laura Smet) and passion between the pair quickly ignites during a stormy seduction. A model and aspiring actress who lives alone in a massive villa inherited from her father, sultry Senta may be physically irresistible, yet she also seems to have a few morbid preconceptions about life, love, and death. As the affair between the pair grows increasingly heated, Philippe at first takes her request to murder a stranger as a means of proving his love as a joke. The more he gets to know her the more that it appears that Senta is in fact deadly serious about her dark request. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Jean Becker's Effroyables Jardins (Strange Gardens) is a tale of survival during WWII. At the beginning of the 1960s, French teenager Lucien (Damien Jouilleot) is deeply embarrassed by the quirky behavior of his father Jacques (Jacques Villeret), as well as Jacques' ongoing performances as a clown at public celebrations. Lucien's mother, Louise (Isabelle Candelier), does nothing to stop her husband. Jacques' friend Andre (Andre Dussollier) tells Lucien about Jacques' experience during the war, a time when both Jacques and Andre were in love with Louise. After doing their part for the French resistance, Jacques and Andre are captured by the Nazis and informed that they may well be executed in less than twenty-four hours. Their unusual relationship with a Nazi guard makes all the difference, and reveals to Lucien the motivation behind his father's actions. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

When a man kills his wife -- who happened to be the most hated woman in the village -- no one is sure if he should be punished or congratulated in this darkly farcical comedy. Jojo (Jacques Villeret) runs a small farm in rural France, and asks for little from life; all he wants to do is finish his chores, tend his goats, and work on his stamp collection. But Jojo's wife Lulu (Josiane Balasko) will not hear of it; often drunk and chronically ill-tempered, Lulu goes out of her way to make Jojo miserable, and she's earned the frightened enmity of nearly everyone in town. After Lulu destroys both his stamp collection and his milk pails in a fit of pique, Jojo visits a lawyer, Jacquard (Andre Dussollier), and posing as a wife-killer, asks how he would defend him in court. With Jacquard's strategy fresh in mind, Jojo contemplates doing away with Lulu when he finds out that she's already made plans to finish him off with poisoned wine. A sudden fight with a bread knife finds Lulu dead and Jojo on trial for murder. Jacquard finds himself putting his earlier theories to work when he's hired to defend Jojo, but to his surprise, many of Jojo and Lulu's neighbors arrive to lend a degree of support. While practically no one will say that Jojo is innocent of the crime, everyone agrees that the community is better off without Lulu -- and are willing to say so in court. Un Crime Au Paradis is a remake of the 1951 hit La Poison; the box-office success of Un Crime Au Paradis in France led to a theatrical re-release of the earlier film. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Acclaimed director Tony Gatlif spins this wildly anarchic tale about three young punks, a bevy of cinematic inside jokes, and a talking stork. Otto and Louna (Romain Duris and Rona Hartner), along with their brainy pal Ali (Ouassini Embarek), rescue a wounded stork who turns out to be an illegal immigrant and a deserter from the Algerian army. The car-thieving, gun-toting crew helps the bird to freedom while rubber-stamping new films with such epithets as "tripe" and shooting someone for insulting the good name of Jean Vigo. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

When Catherine (Nathalie Baye) is caught with her illicit lover by her father-in-law Paul (Michel Serrault), the concerned father leaves to tell his son Thomas (Francois Dunoyer) about the incident. Paul is injured in an auto accident and returns home in a wheelchair unable to speak. Catherine's guilt weighs heavily on her as she hopes to never let Thomas know she was unfaithful. She panics and seeks a way to eliminate Paul in this psychological thriller. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this erotic drama, Marcel (Ralph Michael) fantasizes about being with his daughter-in-law Simone (Beatie Edney) after the death of his wife. The woman pretends to be surprised over his attention but does nothing to discourage his advances. He promises to build her a swimming pool in order to further his fantasies. The story is taken from the novel by Junichiro Tamizaki. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this tragic tale of misunderstanding, obsession, and increasing madness, "she," a beautiful young woman (Isabelle Adjani) settles into a small town in the south of France with her introverted mother (Maria Machado) and physically handicapped father and soon becomes the subject of wild speculation because of her aloofness and at the same time, her obvious sexuality. The young woman is actually caught up in the desire to avenge the long-ago rape of her mother, a rape committed by three Italian immigrants, one of whom is associated with a player piano. An attractive car mechanic (Alain Souchon) is enamored of her, and the woman suddenly sees him in a different light when she learns that his father, now dead, was an Italian immigrant who owned a player piano. Intent on taking action against the mechanic's family to right the wrong suffered by her mother, the daughter begins to lose her grip on sanity when she finds out that the men she suspects of the rape are actually innocent. In fact, her father long ago exacted his own vengeance on the three rapists. This knowledge pushes her over the edge, and she has to be institutionalized. Meanwhile, the young mechanic misunderstands what has happened and sets in motion events that cannot but lead to tragedy. L'Été Meurtier garnered four different Cesars in the 1983 competition: "Best Actress" (Isabelle Adjani), "Best Supporting Actress" (Suzanne Flon), "Best Original Screenplay," and "Best Editing." ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

No relation to the 1949 Somerset Maugham "omnibus" film of the same name, 1981's Quartet is based on the roman a clef by Jean Rhys. Though the names are changed, it is clearly the story of Rhys' romance with Ford Maddox Ford in 1920s Paris. The titular quartet consists of novelist Isabelle Adjani, her Polish husband Anthony Higgins, wealthy philanderer Alan Bates and Bates' artist wife Maggie Smith. Though she's been indulgent of Higgins's past indiscretions, Smith isn't keen on her husband carrying on an affair with Adjani under their own roof. Meanwhile, Higgins sits in prison, jailed for his various petty thefts. Once Higgins is released, he learns about the Bates-Adjani-Smith contretemps. When the dust settles, it is Adjani who suffers the most. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Alain Delon stars in this French/Italian prison-break film. When his son is falsely imprisoned, Delon contrives to bust the boy out. As the title indicates, what comes around goes around in this tense programmer. Delon also cowrote and co-produced. The film was released in Europe as Comme Un Boomerang. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A doctor gains a new perspective on her life and career when she faces a life-threatening illness in this drama. Francoise (Annie Girardot) is a French physician with a very busy schedule. While she's well respected by her patients and colleagues, she has precious little time to spend with her husband Gerard (Francois Perier), her pregnant teenage daughter Elisabeth (Isabelle Huppert), or her sullen son Julien (William Coryn). She somehow manages to find time for her lover Daniel (Jean-Pierre Cassel), but Francoise's life is already starting to fray at the edges when she receives the upsetting news that she has cancer. Francoise, however, learns to put on a brave face and faces her disease and its difficult treatment with optimism and a fierce resolve. Annie Giradot's performance in Docteur Francoise Gailland earned her a Cesar (the French Academy Award). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This French spy thriller makes a number of surprising variations on familiar themes. Tibere (Lino Ventura) is a Soviet nuclear scientist who comes to London with a platoon of his colleagues for a conference. When he is injured in an auto accident, he gets separated from them. The accident was a set-up by British MI5 (secret service). It turns out that he is a Frenchman who was kidnapped by the Soviets many years before. The British insist on his returning to the West to helping the British and French spy agencies. They don't look after him any too well, however, and he ends up being chased by everybody under the sun, including the KGB. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi