Taglines: Temptation. Seduction. Obsession.
Paris in the 1880s. Georges Duroy (Robert Pattinson) is a penniless soldier who has spent the last six months in Paris, barely making a living as an office clerk. At a club he meets an old friend, Charles Forestier (Philip Glenister), with whom he spent three years in the war in Algeria.
The friend is well off and invites him to his home where he meets Mrs. Madeleine Forestier (Uma Thurman) and her friends Clotilde de Marelle (Christina Ricci) and Virginie Rousset (Kristin Scott Thomas). Mrs. Rousset’s husband is an editor of the conservative newspaper La Vie Française and she helps him to get a job there, initially by publishing his diaries from the war in the paper.
Step by step he finds ways improve his social and financial status. He uses his wit and powers of seduction to charm wealthy women, and as he goes from nothing to money all hell breaks loose and things happen and end up looking bad for him. As he goes along with what he has in mind to do, tragedy sets in when all the things that have happened with him and his friends’ wives end up crashing down and he ends up in lot of sticky situations.
Hagen Bogdanski directed the principal photography which began in early February 2010 in London and Budapest. Simon Fuller who helped fund the film also served as an executive producer. The film stars Robert Pattinson as Georges Duroy (Pattinson describes Duroy as being “completely amoral”, Uma Thurman as Madeleine Forestier, Duroy’s secret love interest, and later wife, Kristin Scott Thomas as Madame Rousset, whose lover Duroy becomes to further his interests, Christina Ricci as Clotilde de Marelle, who even though married genuinely loves Duroy, and Colm Meaney as Rousset.
Bel Ami earned $120,462 through a limited theatrical release by Magnolia Pictures at the United States box office. It was opened at 15 theatres on 8 June 2012 and by the end of its theatrical run on 27 June 2012 it was only playing at 2 theatres. It earned $8,182,799 internationally, thus earning a worldwide total of $8,303,261.
Bel Ami has received negative reviews from critics, where it currently holds a 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 88 reviews and an average rating of 4.9 out of 10 with the consensus stating: “Bel Ami contains some soapy pleasures but it overall rushes through the narrative and suffers from a vague central performance by Robert Pattinson.”
Mick LaSalle in his review for San Francisco Chronicle said that “What distinguishes Pattinson in the role is the sense he conveys of someone roiling and churning beneath a surface that is almost, but not quite, calm.”
However Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: “The women are all elegant and intelligent, they know the ways of the world, and they know Georges’ history. Why do they find him attractive? We don’t, and that failure is the downfall of the film.” He singled out Christina Ricci for her performance: “Her character makes the mistake of actually loving Georges. This involves pure acting skill on her part, since Pattinson gives her so little to work with.”
Brent Simon of Shared Darkness criticized the film for being “A gassy, self-satisfied adaptation of the 1885 novel of the same name, threadbare Parisian period piece Bel Ami belies the erroneous notion that costume dramas automatically have a higher IQ than their contemporary dramatic brethren.”
Film Review for Bel Ami
“Bel Ami” adds to the aura of mystery that has enveloped Robert Pattinson since the “Twilight” (2008) films. That mystery involves why this actor, whose default mode is passive brooding, has been cast as a man irresistible to women. One can barely accept that a naive high school girl might fall to his strong, silent vampire, but in “Bel Ami,” he successfully seduces three of the most powerful beauties in Paris society despite having no talent, no money and no conversation.
The movie, set in 1890, is based on a Guy de Maupassant novel about Georges Duroy, son of an illiterate peasant who serves in the French army in Algeria and then finds himself in Paris. The opening shot shamelessly lifts from Chaplin and countless other sources, as the penniless outcast stares hungrily through a restaurant window at the rich people dining inside. In his cramped garret, all he has is a crust of bread, a candle stub and resentment. To make sure we get the point, the movie contrasts shots of a steamed lobster and Georges’ resident cockroach.
Good luck strikes the next day, when in a bordello he encounters an old army buddy, Forestier (Philip Glenister). This man is now political editor of a Parisian daily. He invites Georges to dinner, and when Georges confesses he has no evening-wear, he gives him two gold pieces to buy some. This grants him entry into a dinner party of power couples. Not only Forestier and his comely wife, Madeleine (Uma Thurman), but the paper’s editor, Rousset (Colm Meaney), and his influential wife, Virginie (Kristin Scott Thomas), and the married Clotilde (Christina Ricci), whose husband does not attend but is also high and mighty.
In the course of the film, Georges will seduce all three women, marry one and the daughter of another and prove himself to be a thoroughgoing rotter, cad and bounder. The women are all elegant and intelligent, they know the ways of the world, and they know Georges’ history. Why do they find him attractive? We don’t, and that failure is the downfall of the film.
His first conquest is Madeleine, who not only comes up with an idea for an article he could write for her husband’s paper but even writes it for him. She is a honey-lipped charmer who prefers to write in a scoop-necked negligee while sprawled on her bed. Georges sells the article (which Forestier surely knows his wife wrote), sees it published and permits himself the first of several self-satisfied smiles. Pattinson, alas, is an actor who hasn’t mastered the art of smiling convincingly. He smiles as if saying “cheese!” In this world of sophisticated decadence, he needs a sardonic smile. Imagine Jeremy Irons or Ethan Hawke.
The plot essentially involves only Georges’ affairs, although lip service is paid to intrigue about whether the French government plans to invade Morocco. Georges has been informed that in Paris, it is not the men who have the power, but their wives, and he sets out to climb the social ladder via their beds. He so enraptures Clotilde (Ricci) that she establishes them in a cozy little love nest. His next victim is the distinguished Virginie (Scott Thomas), who he has the effrontery to invite to the love nest for some quick rumpy-pumpy, hurrying her away just in the nick of time before Clotilde arrives.
The actresses do what they can with this sad sack. The surprise for me is Christina Ricci, who I think of as undernourished and nervous, but who flowers here in warm ripeness. Her character makes the mistake of actually loving Georges. This involves pure acting skill on her part, since Pattinson gives her so little to work with. “Bel Ami” ends with Georges’ marriage to a young woman I haven’t yet mentioned, and as the new couple walk down the aisle, they pass those who Georges has betrayed and savaged through the years. It is good to see a poor boy from the provinces make good.
Bel Ami (2012)
Directed by: Declan Donnellan, Nick Ormerod
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Christina Ricci, Colm Meaney, Anthony Higgins, Holliday Grainger, Natalia Tena, James Lance, Timothy Walker, Amy Marston
Screenplay by: Rachel Bennette
Production Design by: Attila Kovács
Cinematography by: Stefano Falivene
Film Editing by: Gavin Buckley, Masahiro Hirakubo
Costume Design by: Odile Dicks-Mireaux
Set Decoration by: Anna Lynch-Robinson
Art Direction by: Zsuzsanna Borvendég
Music by: Lakshman Joseph De Saram, Rachel Portman
MPAA Rating: R for some strong sexuality, nudity and brief language.
Distributed by: Magnolia Pictures
Release Date: March 9, 2012 (United Kingdom), June 8, 2012 (United States)
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