We miss the late Alain Resnais when we watch two of his favorite actors, André Dussollier and Sabine Azéma (Wild Grass, We know the song, Love, drink and sing), struggle in Never confess by Ivan Calbérac (The tasting) without managing to get this vaudeville off the ground, which seems to have been written and produced in the 1980s.
Addressing the white-haired public is a (good) thing. But is it necessary to do so by making old cinema? Not sure.
André Dussollier plays François Marsault, a psychorigid retired general. If his heart is on the left, it is because it is physically very rare for it to be otherwise. Otherwise, he carries his right-wing values like so many banners. Who would have the idea, to celebrate the birthday of Annie, his wife of 50 years, to compose a song for her to the tune of… The Marseillaise ?
Annie, who receives the gift with the indulgence and inner sigh rooted in habit, is of course Sabine Azéma. She is the mother of their three children, of whom only the eldest (Gaël Giraudeau) follows in their father’s footsteps. He is also a soldier. If only one of his offspring (he has four, a fifth is on the way) could be a boy! As for the other two (Joséphine de Meaux and Sébastien Chassagne), they are, the first, single, and the other, horror, an artist. The general’s annoyance with them is palpable.
Infidelity
In short, a French family like many others! Until everything goes wrong. While cleaning out the attic, François discovers the passionate letters that one of their old friends wrote to Annie. Yes, his wife, HIS wife, cheated on him with that spineless guitar “strummer” Boris Pelleray (Thierry Lhermitte). That was 40 years ago, but as the cuckold likes to say and repeat, “I just found out” (yes, sir, we get it). So he decides to go and beat up the scoundrel, who lives in Nice, the city of their youth (which, by the way, makes for some very beautiful images). Annie will accompany her husband. To temper her warlike ardor and to visit their children.
All this smells of slamming doors and slaps that carry. They are there, until the final pirouette. It is a choice, it is deliberate and why not! But despite the solidity of a talented cast that we feel is fully invested, despite some moments truly embodied thanks to them (one, despite its predictability, is particularly moving) and despite the hoped-for transformation of a character rooted in his convictions, Never confess never takes his stride.
The witticisms (“You’ve lost your mind,” she says; “No, I’ve lost face,” he replies) are delivered at a machine-gun pace, favored over a semblance of naturalness that would allow one to immerse oneself in the story. As for Ivan Calbérac’s rudimentary staging, it relies shamelessly on the art of the performers and, through its near-absence of a link and its breaks in tone, keeps the spectator at a distance from this heavy comedy from another time.