Sylvie Joly Movies

Not a strict adaptation of the oft-filmed Victor Hugo classic, director Claude Lelouch's ambitious epic instead focuses on the story of two men, a father and a son, whose life stories bear striking similarities to Hugo's character Jean Valjean. The father is Henri Fortin (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a chauffeur (in 1900) wrongly accused of his employer's murder. Like Valjean, he is subjected to a harsh and unfair prison sentence. While Henri vainly attempts to escape his unjust fate, his family suffers, with his wife forced to raise their young son alone. The film jumps ahead several decades to show the adult life of this son (also Belmondo), a former boxer turned furniture mover who agrees to help smuggle a Jewish lawyer (Michel Boujenah) out of France during the Nazi occupation. Along the way, the lawyer reads to the younger Fortin from Les Misérables, and Fortin begins to imagine himself in the role of Jean Valjean, on the run from the obsessive Inspector Javert. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi

Amanda Weber (Catherine Deneuve) is a museum employee who seeks to discover how and why her nephew (Tom Novembre) was murdered in this dull thriller. She knows her nephew was witness to a government project in which a busload of tourists were killed by a mysterious poisonous gas. Alex (Richard Bohringer) is a villainous government agent with orders to kill anyone with knowledge of the cover-up. Amanda soon becomes a target for the callous veteran assassin. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this rural comedy Pierre Cohen (Pierre Richard) is a sophisticated Parisian psychologist who travels to his brother's farm in Britanny to save it from a hostile takeover by a local landlord. The psychologist decides to save the farm by using the tricks of his trade -- psychological warfare, as it were. In spite of his efforts, he cannot control every situation as he had envisioned and there is more than one loud backfire before his ideas set off a reaction that chugs forward in spite of itself, to a happy conclusion. Pierre Richard takes a vacation from his usual hyper, dim-witted character types in this role, a choice that may leave some of his aficionados disappointed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this comedy, Victor (Peter Ustinov) is a film director whose career has taken a nose dive. He believes that his job difficulties are the result of his increasingly overweight physique, and he becomes the victim of every fad diet and quack physician he can find. Despite this, he has a varied and satisfying love-life. Critics unanimously disliked this film, which was not a notable box-office success. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The lightly mocking title Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Préparez Vos Mouchoirs) sets the tone for this Bertrand Blier-directed amalgam of the sentimental and sardonic. Gérard Depardieu plays an at-wit's-end husband, Raoul, who'll go to any lengths to sexually satisfy his wife, Solange (Carole Laure). Raoul decides that the best thing to cure Solange's boredom would be if she took a lover; thus, he chooses Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere) for the "job." But Stéphane isn't any more successful in arousing Solange than her husband had been. Eventually, it is a 13-year-old boy who quenches Solange's erotic yearnings. Get Out Your Handkerchiefs won a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar as well as a French César award for Best Score (by Georges Delerue). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

English Paul and French Michelle come together again in this sequel to the 1971 film Friends. Several years have passed since they had their adolescent adventure in baby-making. Paul has just finished his fancy British school while Michelle, her baby and an American live together in France. Paul returns to France to find Michelle and take up where they left off. Unfortunately, things don't go exactly as planned. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Director Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses features Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a pair of sociopaths wending their way across France. Though Depardieu is the more dominant of the two, both men are equally culpable in their disregard for common decency. They are particularly rough on women, even the like-minded Miou-Miou, whom they both love in their own way. Jeanne Moreau has a brief bit as an ex-convict who sleeps with both Depardieu and Dewaere. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi