Dir. Ridley Scott , US , 2006, 118 mins
Cast: Russell Crowe, Freddie Highmore, Albert Finney, Marion Cotillard
Review by Carol Allen
This story of city wiz kid Max Skinner (Crowe), who inherits a château and vineyard in Provence from his eccentric Uncle Henry (Finney), is based on a novel by Peter Mayle (A Year in Provence), which his close friend Scott encouraged him to write, thinking what a great film it would make. It looks magnificent, not surprisingly – that's a Ridley Scott trademark. It's a bit like taking a holiday in Southern France - gorgeous locations, including the château itself with its crumbling swimming pool, the countryside around and the village where Fanny (Cotillard), a feisty local with whom Max has a bumpy romance, owns a restaurant. It almost tempts you to take a leaf out of Uncle Henry's book or indeed Mayles', do what so many Brits have done and go live there!.
This is France from a very British point of view, as opposed to the provincial France you see in a French film, in that here it is the French who are the foreigners, and while being somewhat light and superficial it is nevertheless very enjoyable. I prefer Crowe as a dramatic actor but he's very personable in this and his English accent can't be faulted. My favourite scenes though are the flashbacks between Finney, whose wonderfully fruity Henry reflects his favourite special wine, and young Max (Highmore), which have both a lovely sense of fun and a sweet poignancy. I found myself willing grown up Max to go into another memory of his childhood with Uncle Henry, so we could see Finney again. It would have been a more satisfying film it had gone into the sadness behind the relationship between Max and Henry with more of grown up Max finding out who Henry really was, as opposed to this very lighthearted story of an Englishman learning to live abroad and cope with funny French ways.
One of the film's pluses is an extremely good supporting cast, particularly Tom Hollander, as Max's best mate from London, who comes to stay and is drawn to Christie (Abbie Cornish) a young American, who, it turns out, also has a claim to the property. There is a delightful sequence of him with Christie, who appears to be making his dreams come true when she asks him to treat her sunburn, which is intercut with Max's sparkier courtship of Fanny. The blue grey sequences in London with the madness of the bidding on the money market as opposed to the lush colours and quiet peace of Provence provide a good contrast and some further good performances from Richard Coyle as Max's bitter business rival, Kenneth Cranham his boss and the beautiful and smart as paint Archie Panjabi as Gemma, Max's personal assistant.
"A Good Year" is also interesting in terms of film "packaging", being an American financed film with almost entirely European and Antipodean talent, an Australian playing the only significant American character (Christie), yet intended with all its somewhat quaint Britishness, I would surmise, to appeal primarily to the American market. Which would explain the evenhanded jokes against American and British food, embracing the horrors of both McDonald's and fish and chips!
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