MOVIE REVIEW: THE AGE OF MAN (AGE D’HOMME…MAINTENANT OU JAMAIS)
In The Age of Man (curiously, the “now or never” bit is not translated in the Australian title), Romain Duris plays Samuel, a man, who, in what appears to be the last days of his youth, is torn between the responsibility-less life of singledom and committing to his long-term girlfriend, the captivatingly gorgeous, Chloe, played by Aissa Maiga.
That pretty much sums up the whole movie and plot.
At its heart, the movie is about Samuel’s identity crisis – is he good enough to be a husband and father. Past generations of men went to war and created new arts, Samuel, on the other hand, is a film director (we don’t know if he is any good or not) who is more than happy being the assistant to Chloe (who I think is a photographer, although its not all that clear). His friends are all moving to new stages in their lives, getting married and having babies, although Samuel’s interactions with them don’t really shed any light on his current crisis.
It is difficult to describe what else happens in the movie because there is no real plot. Samuel inspects an apartment (although it appears that he is living in a perfectly good one) and briefly flirts with another prospective tenant played by Maria Jurado (?). However, apart from running into her again later in the movie, nothing really come of it all – no drama, no insight into any of the characters. Similarly, he takes his bicycle to get repaired and meets a colleague who has a new film idea, however, nothing at all follows from these events.
There is a particularly funny, and unsexy, love scene and a few other laugh-out-loud moments in the movie. However, much of the humour missed the mark for me (including the fart jokes). Montages interrupt the movie: Samuel fighting in no man’s land, Samuel’s conversations with an imaginery Leonardi Da Vinci and Samuel the caveman. However, each seem out of place, ridiculous and completely unfunny. Although the scenes with Leonardo give some insight into Samuel’s character, they are bizarre to the point of distraction.
The movie ends sweetly but predictably. Most critically, the ending bears almost no relationship to the 90 or so minutes that preceeded it. The words, unfortunately, which should end the title to this review are “doesn’t mean that its good”.
One Man’s Rating (out of 5): 
