I know as an online movie blogger I am supposed to love Michel Gondry and drool over everything he does whether I like it or not. Truth is, however, I’m not much of a fan. Just skimming through this new international trailer for his next film, Mood Indigo (L’écume des jours), I’m already getting that off-beat, fantasy vibe his films have, particularly in the underwater kiss, the floating over the city in a cloud car and the “walls are closing in on me” moment. I don’t know why particularly, but it just doesn’t really do much for me.
As for the story, outside of the Gondry-isms visible in the trailer, the plot synopsis doesn’t seem to be any less strange. The film is an adaptation of Boris Vian’s 1947 novel and tells the story of a wealthy inventor (Romain Duris) who falls for and marries Chloe (Audrey Tautou), and on their honeymoon Chloe falls ill due to a water lily that enters her lung. The solution, to surround her with fresh flowers.
Clearly Gondry is going to be working with some heavy metaphors here and perhaps by the end of the film Chloe will die and her husband will have to plant her and a patch of lilies will grow forever and ever. I’m willing to give the film a shot and hope for the best, but it’s just not a title I’m too excited about.
Along with Tautou and Duris, the film co-stars The Intouchables star Omar Sy and Gad Elmaleh who played the inspector in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.
Mood Indigo will be hitting French cinemas on April 24 and does not yet have a domestic distributor.
