The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun

source: The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun

I give one point for each of Freya Mavor legs, one for her red hair. She is really a looker and the camera loves her, but this only holds on for 15 to 20 minutes, then the bore comes in, the script and the plot is running nowhere. Could have maybe hold up for a 30 minutes netflix episode, but not for a whole movie.

It is an average movie with average story having a slow tempo. Shocking reveal of suspense is not effective. It was presenting in a very dull style whereas it shall be done in a little bit quickly speed with surprising way. However acting is good by leading female actress though her character is not well developed. Half of movie is very dull and we loose interest. It taking your test of patients. Last half hour is just watchable. End is confused. Glasses seen from starting but gun can seen only at end. I wonder how a simple & poor lady who working as typist and never saw a sea can fire a shot with gun as well as drive a car so fast. Director can make anything happens. Overall it is an average movie could be better.

First, for which audience is this movie targeted? Sébastien Japrisot was known for tightly plotted, even if somewhat off the wall thrillers (Piège pour Cendrillon, L' été meurtrier) and the WWI story Un long dimanche de fiançailles. Most of the viewers of this one will not have seen any of these films, so the attraction must be the versatile BD artist and director Joann Sfar. I enjoyed Sfar s previous film Gainsbourg--it had a dreamy quality I liked--so I was prepared to like this one. But the confused plot didn't help any. There is just no way somebody can control the behaviour of another person, until researchers come up with a chip that is implanted in the brain, and even then... No, this story just does not work. The performances range from super-glum (Biolay, Martin) to whimsical and sometimes anxious (Freya Mavor, whom I would like to see again).

For a long while I thought I was watching a live-action version of "Alice In Wonderland", or perhaps even a time-loop movie; when the elaborate plot finally comes together, it is in equal parts surprising and far-fetched. Joann Sfar's direction is top-notch; he maintains a dreamy mood throughout. Freya Mavor is a red-haired, apparently multi-lingual firecracker! **1/2 out of 4.

Dany (Freya Mavor) is a mousy secretary, "thin with flaming red hair" who gets to work some overtime at her boss' house doing some typing (Pre-computer era). He (Benjamin Biolay) leaves with his wife (Stacy Martin) and Dany gets to drive his Thunderbird and opts to take the long way home. On her journey she encounters people who claim she was there the night or day before. This is very confusing for a girl that talks to herself, bending the audience to a MPD explanation. The confusion that Dany felt, I felt too which appears to be the intent of the director. There were times Dany had a broken glass lens and other times not. I couldn't figure out if this was a clue or film screw up. The film was arty and aloof. It wasn't for me, but it seems to have a large audience. I did not enjoy this confusing thriller like the people who have read the book or seen the older version. French with English subtitles. Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (Freya Mavor, Stacy Martin)

A preposterous plot with a harebrained explanation at the end, where one of the main characters is killed. Far better to have killed the script writer. Probably all the actors are competent, main-stream actors, but a second-rate high school cast could have handled the roles. It's something about a secretary being framed for a murder committed by the wife of her boss, and it's kind of a movie about the end of innocence.

Found this one under the section 'mind games' and yep, that is what happens to this lady. First, let me warn you, it's French, so if you don't read good... or speak French... It tells the tale of gorgeous redhead secretary Dany, who's tasked with finishing up some work for her boss, and then roped into staying with him in and his wife, to drive their car back home for them, lucky her!! Well, she drops them off and now behind the wheels of an old sports car, she throws caution to the wind and decides to take the car for a joyride to the sea, because she's never seen the sea. As she's driving through a small town, she decides to have a little fun, as she tells the locals, shes a corporate exec in advertising, and thats all cool until she's attacked in the restroom, and after that, reality gets a little weird, well, those same locals start talking to her about the stuff that she went through the previous night, with her car's break lights out, and hurting her wrist... whoa, she wasn't in this town last night, and she just now hurt her wrist in the attack. And as she just tries to get back home, she also engages in some naughtiness with a dude, that just seems to be waiting for her, and her alter ego, kinda just goes with it, and well gets screwed in a few different ways by this dude, but finding out the truth is more screwed up than anything that's happened. Good movie, thriller, with a touch of artsy fartsy thrown in. Filmbufftim on FB.

The main problem with The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun is that the movie is too slow for its own good. I am used to European movies with very slow pace; but this one has an editing issue. Every scene is too long and there are too many unnecessary repetitions or flashback used to suggest the madness of the main character. A timid secretary Danny is asked by her boss to finish a long and urgent job from his house; with the excuse to see again his wife (and old acquaintance). The next day she is asked to drop her boss, wife and kid on the airport and return the car to his home. Danny decides to go to see the sea; and strange things start happening. The movie is somewhat surreal; but we spend most of the running time in Danny's head and we are never sure what happened or is happening until the very rush end.

This is already the second bad screen adaptation of a magnificent book. Well, to enjoy even the original story, you must either remember or imagine the times without cell phones and developed forensics investigation -- this seems to be a problem for some reviewers here. If you can, the book has everything lacking in the movie: a beautifully crafted chain of events with the murderer's accomplice constantly modifying his plains to frame and kill Danny and the seemingly unlikely chances that let her escape the net again and again. But these "random" events are deeply connected with her character that in the book undergoes an exemplary character development, first drifting with the events, then the self-doubt, and in the end taking the things in her own hand before reaching Marseille. ("The phoenix being born again" -- this is really dismal that this memorable point of the book is not shown in the movie at all, it's not even attempted.) Her inner strength is nowhere to be seen in the movie, although they succeeded in showing her meekness as well as her longing for freedom and luxury. The actors seem to have done everything they could within the limits of the script, but Benjamin Biolay is miscast as Monsieur Caravaille: he should be a heavily built strong man, menacing already in his appearance, but energetic and silken at the beginning, not annoyed and lethargic all the time. Freya Mavor is rather good but her skin is not tanned, which is very important in the book -- this is why everybody she encounters on the road instantly believes she is from the upper class. With this very bold freckled and pale appearance she could never be mistaken for another woman. And the role of "Georges" is kind of quickly thrown together here, while vivid and remarkable in the book, so Elio Germano did not have a real chance either -- but succeeds to show at least a little from both his easy-going and menacing sides. The air of the sixties is well represented sometimes, in the indoor settings, her clothing and certainly in the mighty Thunderbird itself -- but come on, all the roads are empty and besides the actors there is not a living person in sight at Paris-Orly. Some contemporary footages could have helped here!