Priscilla, Iris and the Men, Captain Me... Films to watch or avoid this week

Biopic of Sofia Coppola, 1h53

His name seems to come straight from Modiano. Sofia Coppola, however, films Priscilla Beaulieu as a Robbe-Grillet heroine. Priscilla is like “Last Year at Graceland.” In 1959, the teenager met Elvis Presley in West Germany where he was doing his military service. She is 14, he is ten years older. The singer is already an international star. He likes her. In front of him, she remains speechless. He's so much taller than her that he must get a stiff neck every time he kisses her. In class, the high school student uses her relationship with the star to copy her neighbor. He confides, mourns the loss of his mother. Priscilla joins him in Memphis.

Sofia Coppola stays true to herself. The void is his subject. She fills it with silences, knowing looks, interior yawns. Cailee Spaeny lends her fragile physique to this abandoned wife. Jacob Elordi makes Elvis an idiot addict who feels bad about himself, a capricious kid who grew up too quickly in his pajamas embroidered with his initials, always far away, in Las Vegas or Hollywood, and stubbornly refusing to listen to the Beatles. The film has something sluggish and poisonous, like a Gothic tale on Prozac. E. NOT.

Also read: Our review of Priscilla: the penal colony of rock

Comedy by Caroline Vignal, 1h38

On dating apps, the proposals are not lacking in spice and the pleasure can be just a click away. For Iris, a priori fulfilled by a perfect family life, it is a new world of which she did not suspect the existence. But frustrated in her married life by a waning libido, she ends up giving in to the promises of illicit pleasures served on the sites. During her first meeting, she hides behind glasses and a hat before quickly running away. In the second, a divorcee converted to polyamory tempts her with a cocktail and a striptease. From the third, experienced in the exercise, she sets her conditions such as never seeing each other again. In the fourth… After an amusing and slightly strange scene, the encounters follow one another but do not lead to much, with poorly embodied secondary characters. However, there is something to be said about the couple in the midst of an existential crisis and desire, especially approached from a female perspective like here. That leaves Laure Calamy. In almost every shot, the Ten Percent actress gives 100%, radiant and sensual. V.B.

Also read: Our review of Iris and the Men: metro, work, libido

Drama comedy by Selma Vilhunen, 2h01

Heartbreaking in Aki Kaurismäki's Dead Leaves, Finnish actress Alma Pöysti is back in this convention-defying romp. She plays Julia, a politician married to Matias, an influential pastor. Parents of a little 8 year old boy, they are happy and in love. This harmony falters when Julia learns that Matias is having an affair with an editor. Seeing her husband torn between her and her rival, Julia decides to experiment with the concept of three-way marriage with all the sentimental and logistical dilemmas that that implies. On a subject that could prove scabrous, director Selma Vilhunen prefers tenderness and introspection. She is not here to make fun of polyamory but examines her characters like a sociologist. Pain and laughter are omnipresent. Not necessarily in situations or misunderstandings where we expect them. C.J.

Also read: “Acting is an art that must be taken seriously”: Alma Pöysti, Finnish romanticism

Drama by Matteo Garrone, 2h02

Me captain would be signed by the Dardenne brothers, we would know what to expect. Rape, torture and death on arrival, the journey of two young African migrants seems like a long ordeal. Coming from Matteo Garrone, we don't really know where to start, as the Roman director has worked in all genres - criminal film with Gomorra, satire with Reality, tale with Pinocchio. But Garrone is an Italian, in other words a good-natured Frenchman (or Belgian). If the tragedy of the migrants hardly lends itself to optimism, Garrone seems to want to maintain hope against all odds. The journey of Seydou and Moussa, two 16-year-old Senegalese, who left Dakar to reach Europe clandestinely, is not a walk in the park. Garrone films the grueling crossing of the desert or the torture in Libyan jails, even if it remains almost off-camera. “Faced with such a delicate and dramatic subject, I took care to create the most sober and stripped-down staging possible, to avoid any complacency or vain curiosity,” explains the director in the press kit. But Garrone's refusal to wallow in darkness leads him to sugarcoat the hell experienced by migrants. He can't help but take care of beautiful images, create pretty music, and even deny reality through clumsy dreamlike escapes. We are sometimes on the verge of postcard and moral fault. The final heroization of Seydou is also problematic. Garrone interrupts his story before the boat docks on the Italian shores. This prevents him from showing the reality that awaits the wretched of the land and sea once they land in Europe. E. S.

Also readOur review of Me Captain: Garrone fails with migrants