The Big Picture

This is an enjoyable and entertaining page-turner of a film based on a page-turning novel by Douglas Kennedy. It stars the charismatic Romain Duris (of The Beat That My Heart Skipped) who plays a frustrated photographer and successful but dissatisfied lawyer, Paul Exben, who accidentally kills his wife's lover and runs away on a life-changing odyssey. All sorts of things happen to him, which the film struggles to fit in.

The film get bogged down with some unecessary plot at the beginning about the legal practice he works for,  involving Catherine Deneuve . But I excuse this as a way of working Deneuve into the film for obvious reasons. Once the film gets under way it is fine.

I was bowled over by Duris in The Beat That My Heart Skipped and I don't ever expect him to find a part or director who suit his as well as that did, but here he is fine.