Ismael’s Ghosts: Directors Cut | Arnaud Desplechin | NYFF 2017
Ismael Vuillard (Mathieu Amalric) is a director trying to finish his new film which has already begun production but is nowhere near ready to go. He’s enjoying a fruitful getaway with his girlfriend Sylvia (Charlotte Gainsbourg) when a literal ghost from his past life crashes the party. You see, his first wife Carlotta (Marion Cotillard) comes uninvited to their beachside house. The problem is, Carlotta has been missing and believed to be dead for 20 years.
Things go south quickly as Vuillard is understandably confused by this all and tries to make sense of how the hell Carlotta is standing in front of him. Once he realizes he isn’t going crazy, the anger kicks in. Where has she been for 20 years and how could she just waltz on in on him like that so casually as if she hadn’t just spent two decades as a ghost to not only him but her own father (László Szabó).
To make this batshit situation even more complicated, Vuillard has to balance all his emotions with the equally confused Sylvia who feels that she has and will be cast aside from Carlotta, as the void in his heart has been seemingly filled after all these years.
On the surface, this is a potentially interesting plot but one that is bogged down by Desplechin’s loose narrative between this storyline and cutting to scenes of the movie Ismael is struggling to complete. We see literal scenes about the thriller he is making about a spy that is a fictionalized version of his younger brother who he hasn’t seen in years. On top of that Desplechin cuts to scenes of Ismael losing his mind trying to make the film and dealing with this new internal conflict on what to do about Carlotta, Sylvia and if he should tell Carlotta’s father that his daughter has returned from the dead.
It’s hard to argue with seeing Amalric, Cotillard and Gainsbourg in leading roles, they all command the screen as usual and offer some fine performances that are way above the material that they are given. The problem is that the film is strung together is such a loose clumsy manner that you are never pulled into any of the storylines in any way. It’s just too disjointed and lost in its characters madness that it just was a cold uninviting journey that never amounted to anything resembling a satisfying viewing experience, despite the actors admirable best efforts.
Rating: 4.5/10
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