A Serious Job, Mystery in Venice, The Book of Solutions... Films to see or avoid this week

Dramatic comedy by Thomas Lilti, 1h41

Thomas Lilti leaves the hospital environment for National Education. So here we are in a middle school in the suburbs. It's back to school. Vincent Lacoste, with his eternal rookie face, arrives to replace a mathematics teacher. He is taken for an intern. In the classroom, things start off badly: the window won't close. This detail alone sums up the situation. There is always a window that does not close, and we teach our class anyway. System D rules. Colleagues welcome the newcomer with kindness tinged with irony. Lilti touches it just right, doesn't add to it, avoids clichés. That's life. It's there, not so simple, never boring. With A serious profession, even the dunces would be ready to sign for a school year. IN.

Policeman by Kenneth Branagh, 1h44

After Murder on the Orient Express in 2017 and Death on the Nile in 2021, Kenneth Branagh decided to step out of his comfort zone by freely transposing a much lesser known work by Agatha Christie, The Halloween Murder. Where the plot of the original short story took place on All Saints' Eve in a lost manor in the English countryside, the Belfast director decided to spice up the sauce. Nothing like Venice to impress. Misty lagoons, masks, bautas and gondolas provide the setting for this new and most successful “murder party”. O.D.

Dramatic comedy by Michel Gondry, 1h42

In 2013 L’Écume des jours was released on screens. A big budget adaptation. Fans of Michel Gondry's films (there are many) and Boris Vian's novel (there are still some) do not rush to the theaters. Reviews are mixed. The failure is relative but Gondry's trauma is very deep. The director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind attempts to exorcise this problematic film with The Book of Solutions. Ten years later, he returned to the editing of L'Écume des jours, when he fled with the rushes to his aunt's house in the Cévennes, far from Paris and the producers dismayed by the first version he showed them. His alter ego is named Marc. We don't see an image of L'Écume des jours. But everything else is true, or probable. In this uncompromising self-portrait of the artist in crisis, love has the last word. It saves everything, even cinema. E.S.

Romance by Arielle Dombasle, 1h28

Balzac would not have come back. Seeing her libertine illustrated by the irresistible, unique Arielle Dombasle is too much. The whole thing is funny. The actress throws herself wholeheartedly into her project, with the originality and excess of a Sapritch (blonde and pretty version). This total absence of naturalness is its trademark. She doesn't hesitate, shows her breasts, sings Handel, is always escorted by admirers like Amanda Lear during the disco era. We are constantly on the verge of ridicule, without knowing exactly which side. A thousand times better than Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels. IN.

Drama by Philippe Garrel, 1h35

Since the investigation published in Mediapart on August 30 in which several actresses (including Anna Mouglalis and Clotilde Hesme) testify to non-consensual kisses on the part of Philippe Garrel, we can imagine the embarrassment of his children, the actors Louis, Esther and Léna . They are starring in their father's latest film. Through a family of puppeteers, Le Grand Chariot speaks of the weight of inheritance, the difficulty of freeing oneself, the life of an artist and love. A disturbing abyss.

Drama by Catherine Breillat, 1h44

Anne secretly succumbs to the charm of Théo, her stepson, who imagines himself to be the reincarnation of Tadzio from Death in Venice. We see that in the region the Bovarys spend their free time without worrying about morality. Oh dear, Breillat is going strong. Lovebirds are really lazy people, the thing usually happens at home, which avoids hotel costs and gossip from the neighbors. Let's call it a domestic accident. The two hours are on the screen. There is displayed a great naivety, blushes that are no longer in season, an old-fashioned audacity. Last Summer, a remake of a Danish film that no one has seen, looks like Chabrol under bromide. It would make a nice first film. This is the fourteenth signed by Catherine Breillat. Find the mistake. IN.