Cécile De France Movies

Directed by Luc Pages, A+ Pollux follows a mild-mannered translator as he reflects on a bittersweet period in his romantic past. Halvard Sans (Gad Elmaleh), at one point, had met a mercurial woman named Pollux (Cecile de France), who, due to miscommunication, disappeared from his life not even a day after they had been introduced. Afterwards, Halvard sleeps with a multitude of Parisian women, eventually getting another shot with Pollux. Meanwhile, his sister is dating the host of a wildlife-themed TV-show, which suggests that the various rituals of human beings are not so much more evolved than those of the animal kingdom. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

This tough and gritty French-language crime drama represents the premier installment in a two-part series of features on the life and doings of notorious Gallic hood Jacques Mesrine (1936-79). Mesrine is played, in both installments, by actor Vincent Cassel (Sa Majeste Minor), who reportedly underwent massive weight gain and weight loss to convincingly portray the volatile Mesrine at various periods of his life. Director Jean-François Richet begins in 1979, with Mesrine's uncommonly violent death, whereby he and a beautiful young woman are suddenly (and fatally) ambushed by Parisian police not far from Mesrine's place of birth; Richet then flashes back to the Franco-Algerian War of the late 1950s and a brutal interrogation undergone by Mesrine. Following a military discharge, Mesrine returns to his parents' suburb of Clichy, where his dad has arranged a pathetic job for him in a lacemaking factory. Never one to take humiliation lying down, Jacques perceives burglary, larceny and racketeering as much-superior options and decides to pursue a life of crime via a "business partnership" with childhood buddy Paul (Gilles Lellouche), who works for mobster Guido (Gerard Depardieu). As the years pass, Jacques works his way up through the ranks of the underworld; via Paul, he also meets and falls hard for two women: Pigalle streetwalker Sarah (Florence Thomassin), and Sofia (Elena Anaya), a beautiful Spanish woman with whom he cohabitates after doing time in a French prison. Following a brief and unsuccessful attempt to "go straight," Jacques re-connects with Guido, then finds it necessary to escape from France to Canada with his new mistress Jeanne (Cecile de France). Unfortunately, another prison sentence is waiting for him there, replete with brutal solitary confinement, but the possibility of a daring escape beckons. Part two of the Mesrine saga, entitled Mesrine: L'Énnemi public no. 1 for French release, followed immediately after and picks up where this installment wraps. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Irene (Cecile de France) is a cute but klutzy thirtysomething who hasn't had a romantic relationship in four years. Tired of circumstantial celibacy, the paralegal consistently finds herself drawn to unavailable men, particularly her co-worker Luca (Olivier Sitruk). Her friends, all passionately single, offer no support to Irene's plight. Meanwhile, Francois (Bruno Putzulu), an easygoing handyman Irene had hired to paint her apartment, turns out to be her perfect match. Though it looks like Irene may be too wrapped up in translating the signals sent to her from various male co-workers to notice Francois, she eventually comes to see what has been in front of her all along. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

A man eager to learn Spanish gets an education he wasn't expecting in this comedy drama. Xavier (Romain Duris) is a French economics student who is nearing the completion of his degree and is looking for work. Xavier's father arranges for him to meet a ranking member of the Ministry of Finance, who makes him an offer -- he can give him a good job, but only under the condition that he learn to speak Spanish. Determined not to pass up the opportunity, Xavier enrolls in a language program in Barcelona, despite the misgivings of his girlfriend, Martine (Audrey Tautou). Upon his arrival, Xavier moves into a large house shared by a large group of students from all over Europe. Xavier finds that his ideas and attitudes are challenged in a positive way by the diverse personalities of his housemates, and that his loyalty to Martine is tested by his attraction to Anne-Sophie (Judith Godrèche), a sweet but lonesome woman from France who has been away from her husband for too long. After a visit, most of Xavier's roommates decide they don't much care for Martine and Xavier gets advice on seducing Anne-Sophie from an unexpected source -- Isabelle (Cécile de France), a footloose lesbian living in the house. L'Auberge Espagnole received its world premier at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to earn prizes at the 2002 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the 2003 Lumière Awards, and the 2003 César Awards. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Music aficionados in the U.S. might remember Jeannine Deckers by her stage name, The Singing Nun -- performer of the one-hit-wonder "Dominique," which topped the U.S. pop charts for ten weeks in 1963, displaced the Kingsmen's seminal "Louie, Louie," and inspired the Debbie Reynolds musical The Singing Nun as a fictionalized version of Deckers' life. Behind the gloss, however, Deckers led one of the most unusual lives of any late 20th century European celebrity. With Soeur Sourire, director Stijn Coninx tells the performer's strange story. The tale opens in 1959, when young Belgian girl Jeannine (Cecile de France) flees her parents' strictly conservative home, and moves into a Dominican convent. While there, she chafes beneath the restrictions thrust onto her -- such as the inability to sing and play her guitar -- but begins quietly authoring songs. She impulsively books time in the Phillips studio to record one of the tunes, planning to donate to charity the monies earned from the song, but Phillips executives overhear it and grow so enthusiastic that they offer Deckers a recording contract under the stage name "Soeur Sourire" (or "Sister Smile,") and turn her into an international sensation. Then, at the pinnacle of her success, not long after The Ed Sullivan Show travels to Belgium to film her, she struggles with an attempted reconciliation between her religious faith and beckoning pop stardom. Deckers ultimately shocks everyone by shucking Catholicism, pursuing a full-time career as a recording star, recording radically left-wing protest songs, and taking up with a lesbian partner, Annie (Sandrine Blancke). The two fall deeply in love and open a school together for autistic children, but Jeannine's world falls apart when the Belgian government comes calling and informs her that she owes a fortune in back taxes for "Dominique" profits that she originally donated to charity. This actually marked the second of two major features within a ten-year period to cover Deckers' life -- the first, 2001's Suor Sorriso, utilized an experimental, non-linear approach and received mostly scathing reviews. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A small-time crooner of sentimental ballads enters into a May-December romance with a fragile young real-estate agent in this low-key romantic drama starring Gérard Depardieu and Cécile de France. Fifty-something Alain (Depardieu) is something of a local celebrity in Clermont-Ferrand, and few nights pass when the popular singer-of-standards doesn't exit the stage until well into the morning hours. But karaoke is making singers such as Alain a rare breed these days, and it seems as if his days under the spotlight may be numbered. One night, while serenading the audience from the stage, Alain spots beautiful and unfamiliar blonde Marian (de France) in the crowd. Though he eventually her to meet him the following day, the cautiously guarded Marian remains curiously immune to his charm. Nevertheless, Alain's quiet persistence and self-depreciating humor eventually pays off, and the two soon find themselves strangely drawn to one and other. As fate would have it, Marian is currently employed at a real estate company owned by Alain's friend Bruno (Mathieu Amalric) - who also has eyes for the emotionally troubled young woman. Though Alain's ex-wife and current manager Michele (Christine Citti) doesn't discourage the ageing singer's relationship with the younger woman, her concern with his apparently-waning career soon prompts her to consider how she will spend her own future. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide