An Eye For Beauty (Le règne de la beauté)
Special Presentations
An Eye for Beauty marks the return of Quebec’s Denys Arcand after a seven year layoff, and it proves that even the greatest of filmmakers can take a simple premise and screw it up beyond belief. It’s an unmitigated disaster.
Luc (Éric Bruneau) is a young architect who’s slowly building a reputation as a top shelf professional, living with his beautiful wife within reach of the St. Lawrence River. On a business trip to Toronto, what starts as a casual fling with a beautiful young woman (Melanie Merkosky) evolves into a torrid love affair. Wrapped up in a whirlwind of emotions that begin to affect his home life, Luc has to make the decision between embracing passion and obviously lying to his wife and friends or going back to his neatly ordered life.
This is so banal and off putting it’s embarrassing, playing into every tired French Canadian movie cliché. Seven years and all Arcand can show for it is lazy, uninspired storytelling. Arcand shoots it well, but the script is to basic for us to be engaged with the protagonists awkward romantic fumbling. Every character is an idiot and every situation feels forced and tacky instead of real (or at the very least quirky). Bruneau is okay, but Merkosky can’t do anything with bad dialogue, a horrible character, and nonexistent chemistry with her leading man.
An Eye for Beauty is a flop in every sense of the word. Avoid it. Seriously. (Dave Voigt)
Screens
Thursday, September 11th, 6:00pm, VISA Screening Room (Elgin)
Friday, September 12th at 12:00pm, Scotiabank #3
Thanks to SPiN TORONTO for sponsoring our TIFF 2014 coverage.