Laurent Stocker Movies
- 2009
Recalling such prior successes as The Big Chill, Peter's Friends and Return of the Secaucus 7, director Daniele Thompson's seriocomedy A Change of Plans follows a group of four French couples who converge in an apartment over the course of one lengthy summer's eve and spend the time chatting about life, personal goals, relationships and sex. The said event unfurls during the perennial "Fete de la musique" in the City of Lights. Attendees include: the shark-like divorce attorney who owns the apartment, M.L. (Karin Viard) and her out-of-work husband Piotr (Dany Boon); slick, unctuous attorney Lucas (Patrick Thompson) and his slightly stuck-up homemaker wife Sarah (Emmanuelle Seigner); gynecologist Melanie (Marina Fois) and her oncologist husband Alain (Patrick Bruel); and M.L.'s sister Juliette (Marina Hands) and her much older boyfriend Erwann (Patrick Chesnais). As the night unfurls, it becomes readily apparent that none of the partners are happy and that virtually all have cheated or are planning on cheating on each other, which turns the film into an extended meditation on dissatisfaction and infidelity among the Parisian upper-crust. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karin Viard, Dany Boon, (more)
- 2007
Acclaimed director Claude Berri (Jean de Florette) helms the whimsical romantic comedy Ensemble, c'est tout (Hunting and Gathering, 2007). A box office blockbuster in France, the picture follows the romantic couplings that form in the lives of several lonely Parisian singles. The lead characters include: an emotionally fragile, exhausted cleaning lady named Camille (Audrey Tatou) who is suffering from anorexia; a well-to-do young man named Phillibert struggling with his own sexual orientation (Laurent Stocker) but who begins to drift toward heterosexuality and a stable relationship with a woman; and Phillibert's rebellious pothead roommate Franck (Guillaume Canet), who can never quite breach the possibility of committing to one woman, or come face to face with his dream of opening a French restaurant - until he meets Camille and the pieces begin to fall into place. Writer-director Berri adapted the novel by Anna Gavaldi. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Tautou, Guillaume Canet, (more)
- 2006
The small-scaled, darkly comic crime thriller Hardset. A Murder in Paris follows the actions perpetrated by Paul (French stand-up comedian Elie Semoun), a divorcée desperate for the money to cover his own alimony dues. When a friend, Daubelle (Philippe Uchan) introduces him to an overbearing loan shark named Sarreby, Paul impulsively whacks the shark over the head, seizes envelopes full of hard cash, and hits the road. However, this most unlikely criminal begins to feel the twitching pangs of guilt, and as he heads to the residence of a new lover, Simone (Ludmila Mikael), he begins sending letters back to Paris that implicate him in Sarreby's death. Philippe Colin (Cine Follies), a film critic turned scenarist and director, wrote and helmed the picture; for the ambience, Collin and production designer Pascal Chatton utilize a mise-en-scène that suggests the mid-1950s. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elie Semoun, Ludmila Mikael, (more)
