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Plot

Like the American pictures Magnolia and Happy Endings, French helmer Nicole Garcia's ensemble drama Charlie Says interweaves a tapestry of mordant and miserable existences. Garcia zeroes in on six vice-ridden Gallic men, all generally average and unremarkable individuals, and several at the midpoints of their sorry lives. The characters include: Mathieu (Patrick Pineau), an artic researcher returning to the town where he grew up to host an important conference; Adrien (Arnaud Valois), a national celebrity notorious for losing a tennis match, who must now resume formal court training; small-town mayor Jean-Louis Bertagnat (Jean-Pierre Bacri) , who prepares to honor Mathieu at a town ceremony and bides his off time in a stormy extramarital affair with landscape gardener Severine (Sophie Cattani); ex-con Joss (Benoit Pooleverde), a man attempting to survive parole without drifting back into crime; pool worker Serge Torres (Vincent Lindon) , a husband and father who flirts dangerously with married Finnish co-worker Nora (Minna Haapkyla); and Serge's son, the Charlie of the title (Ferdinand Martin) who has Nora's husband as a teacher but consents to ably assisting his father in the execution of an affair with Nora by falsely indicating his father's whereabouts to his mother.
MPAA Rating:
Genre(s):
Drama
Run Time:
134min.
Distributor(s):
Mars Distribution
Director(s):
Nicole Garcia
Starring:
Jean-Pierre Bacri , Vincent Lindon , Benoît Magimel , Benoît Poelvoorde , Patrick Pineau
Themes:
Teachers and Students,Small-Town Life,Infidelity,Intersecting Lives
Tone:
Humorous,Earnest,Matter-of-Fact
Keywords:
betrayal,co-worker,landscaping,mayor,parolee,passenger,passenger-train,scientist,tennis-player
Language:
French