Quick Review - Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

Actors and awards committees love biopics, but filmmakers seem to have grown increasingly wary of the genre, looking for different and fresh angles. Joann Sfar's new biopic Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life finds one that's different, but not so fresh. It tells the story of Serge Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino), who began his career as a painter, and then veered into one as a successful songwriter and part-time singer. He became known as a lover of Brigitte Bardot (Laetitia Casta) and husband of Jane Birkin (Lucy Gordon) and recorded memorable songs with both: "Bonnie and Clyde" with the former and the sexy "Je t'aime... moi non plus" with the latter. The different angle here is that the material comes from a graphic novel, and that Gainsbourg is sometimes visited by his "mug," or a giant foam puppet of himself. The puppet first appears as a huge head (with protruding ears and crooked nose), and then later as a more spindly creature in a tuxedo. This idea barely works at all, and the rest of the movie follows the standard biopic formula: Gainsbourg becomes increasingly, physically wrecked as his success increases, and minor characters flit in and out of his life without ever leaving much of an imprint. I had been looking forward to seeing Casta as Bardot, and she's wonderful, but all too briefly. Overall, the film makes a common mistake: it tells what happened to Gainsbourg, but not who he really was. - Jeffrey M. Anderson