Jean-Francois Goyet Movies

In Housewarming (the original title of which translates as Remodeling: You Know When It Starts...), Carole Bouquet stars as Chantal Letellier, a wealthy, powerful, and happily divorced Paris attorney who devotes a lot of her time to helping the city's poorly treated immigrants. Chantal literally dances her way through the courtroom, winning over the judges with ease. Her busy life seems to be going swimmingly until she decides to remodel her massive apartment. She hires a brilliant but mercurial former client from Colombia, Eduardo (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo), as her architect. He and his illegal immigrant crew are highly qualified, just not in the jobs they've been hired to do, and they quickly begin to demolish her home. A few other problems arise. Poncin (Jean-Pierre Castaldi), an obnoxious wealthy former client, has fallen in love with Chantal and begun stalking her. Her young daughter, Pulchérie (Giulia Dussolier), apparently has a crush on a worker with a questionable background who speaks no French and calls himself Betamax (Geovanny Tituaña). Chantal's teenaged son, Martin (Ferdinand Chesnais), quickly grows irritated with the destruction, and the workers' devil-may-care attitude. As Eduardo's ambitions grow, and the project's costs mount, Chantal's immense reserve of patience begins to wane. Housewarming, directed by Brigitte Roüan, marks the last filmed appearance by legendary producer Humbert Balsan, who committed suicide in 2005. The film also stars Aldo Maccione, Didier Flamand, Sotigui Kouyaté, Bernard Menez, and Françoise Brion. Housewarming was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of their Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in 2006. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Jean-Henri Roger's Lulu stars Elli Medeiros as the title character. Lulu is a transsexual who lives with John (Gerard Meylan). One of the town drunks she serves at her bar accuses her of killing a local criminal. A detective (Bruno Putzulu) starts a quirky investigation into the charge. A journalist (Jean-Pierre Kalfon) with affectionate feelings for Lulu figures in the plot. Lulu was shot on Digital Video. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A French road movie with an unlikely and mystifying title, Western is actually a romantic comedy-drama from writer-director Manuel Poirier. A charming Spanish shoe salesman, Paco (Sergi Lopez), picks up a Russian hitchhiker, Nino (Sacha Bourdo). Nino steals Paco's flashy car because Nino thinks that it will help him find a woman. Paco is befriended by Marinette (Elisabeth Vitali), and they fall in love, but he loses his job. Paco attacks Nino, but the two later become friends. Marinette tells Paco that she wants to have a trial separation before making a commitment, so Paco and Nino take a trip across the French countryside. At a hotel, two women reject the awkward Nino and sleep with Paco. Paco tries to help Nino by canvassing the town's women in a fake poll on their ideal man, but this scheme also backfires. As they continue their romantic misadventures, luck begins to shift from Nino to Paco. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

Based on a short novel by Ania Carmel, this dark drama follows the survival developed by a brother and sister forced to grow up under the tyrannical rule of a father who brutally attempts to instill a sense of self-reliance and preparedness into them by acts of cruelty. They cannot turn to their mother as she is dying of a terrible illness. To cope, Daniel and Marie form a close bond and communicate telepathically. When their mother finally dies, the children flee as their father tosses furniture out the windows. First they stay with a group of kindly cheese makers. When they prove to have sinister ulterior motives, the kids move on. One night at a disco, a man tries to seduce Marie and this sets the stage for tragedy. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This European drama, set in Paris, follows a brilliant musician as he suddenly forsakes his career, to live and love amongst the common populace. Armand is the violinist who yearns to experience that life and to share his music with everyone, not just the wealthy and the elite. He leaves the glittering world of classical music without a backward glance and takes up residence in the Paris metro where he is surrounded by beggars and tramps. There he meets and becomes friends with Lydia, a metro employee. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

An expectant mother begins to question the identity of her unborn child's father after entering into an extramarital affair with her sister's lover. Marie and Antoine are living together and deeply in love when Marie voices her desire to become a mother. Unfortunately for Marie, Antoine has no interest in starting a family. Shortly thereafter, Marie meets Paul, and coolly rejects his advances. But later, when Paul begins sleeping with Marie's sister Juliette, Marie realizes that he may in fact be the man of her dreams. Subsequently alternating between Antoine and Paul as she wrestles with her nagging conscience, Marie later learns she is pregnant and realizes that she can't be certain which of her lovers is the father. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

As a young man, Gerard was in a relationship with Marianne, a woman he called the love of his life, someone he would love even beyond the veils of death. However, somehow he drifted out of his relationship with her, though they were occasionally in touch with one another. Many relationships later, he is now married and has children by a wonderfully solid and nurturing woman (whom he is not faithful to). When he hears of the death of his first love, it causes him to reevaluate his relationships, and he realizes that Marianne was indeed the one great love of his life. Only his own lack of a real center caused him to lose that precious relationship. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this drama, two disparate women are bereaved when the third part of their love triangle dies. After the funeral, the wife decides it is time to get to know her husband's mistress. This frightens the mistress a bit because she suspects the wife has an ulterior motive. The story is taken from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Eternal Husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this comedy drama, two lovers go on vacation to the fellow's summer home in southern France. Once there, the woman becomes quite jealous because she knows that many women have been at this house with him. She herself is not as experienced as he and secretly dreams of having many different lovers. Time passes and things become increasingly tense between them and they begin verbally attacking each other. Finally they make peace and love. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This portrayal of the reunion of an estranged father and daughter is set against the backdrop of a theatrical production. The father Pierre (Michel Piccoli) is the artistic director of a theater, and when his daughter Manon (Sandrine Bonnaire) lets him know that she is coming to see him after a year's absence, Pierre decides to prepare for the meeting. He goes to the theater with his girlfriend Ariane (Sabine Azema) and has the actresses in his troupe act out different aspects of his daughter's character. Unfortunately, this is not adequate preparation, for when Manon does show up, nothing goes quite as he imagined. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This is an affecting story about a father's attempts to mend the breaches in the relationship between himself and his 10-year-old daughter. Emmanuel (Sami Frey) is the father of Elise (Mara Goyet) by his first marriage, and the stepfather of an older daughter by his second marriage. He tries to make the best of both family relationships by taking off to visit his young daughter on the weekends, but that only makes his new family a little jealous -- especially his stepdaughter. She herself is confused about her own relationship with him. After a particularly emotional send-off one weekend, Emmanuel and Elise take a trip from the south of France into Spain, working on a film project. Through a series of round-about conversations, Emmanuel manages to open up a few channels of communication with Elise -- channels that expand even wider when he uses the technique of talking into her video camera to express thoughts and feelings that otherwise would have remained hidden. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi