CANNES 2024 - remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

CHIARA MASTROIANNI IN MARCELLO MIO

MARCELLO MIO (Christophe Honoré)

TRAILER

In Competition. Chiara Mastroianni is the daughter, born 1972, of Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve. She has often played in Honoré's films in secondary roles, but this time is the center of one as a version of herself: taking on the faux identity of her famous father. Cate Blanchett wearing a similar drag to play Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' I'M NOT THERE was brilliant, but that was something quite different. Bradshaw giving it only 2/5 stars in his GUARDIAN review calls this film a "twee" and "unconvincing and tiresome piece of cine-narcissism" redeemed only slightly by a "droll Catherine Deneuve," the best thing" in this piece of "Mastroianni family whimsy." Jordan Mintzer in his HOLLYWOOD REPORTER review shows this film to be sprinkled with arcane references to European film history - for Chiara, who played her first big role at 21 in André Téchiné's MY FAVORITE SEASON, subsequently worked not only frequently for Honoré but sometimes for Raúl Ruiz, Arnaud Desplechin, Manoel de Oliveira, and Claire Denis. Guy Lodge in a VARIETY review, noting MARCELLO MIO features a "bevy of A-listers as themselves," describes the film as "a vastly indulgent but gossamer-weight bit of frippery" that was "probably more fun to make than it is to watch." Honoré has excelled at lightweight movies like LA BELLE PERSONNE or LOVE SONGS/LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR, but this, says Bradshaw, is merely "an indulgent doodle of a film, a self-admiring industry in-joke, an earthbound flight of fancy, unconvincing on a literal level, and unenlightening on a metaphorical level." Including Fabrice Luccchini, Melvil Poupaud, Nicole Garcia et al. as themselves doesn't help. "Yet Deneuve," says Bradshaw, "puncturing her daughter’s affectations and delusions with a wry and bemused smile, injects some real humor."