Juliette Binoche Movie:

Editorial Review:
At the age of 10, Martin is sent by his single mother (a tough, tender, joyful Carmen Maura) to live with his father, an industrialist with a wife and family of his own. Ten years later, the grown Martin (pretty, first-time actor Alexis Loret) flees his new home in a panic when his father dies, and he lives like a hermit in the hills before seeking out his brother (Mathieu Amalric) in Paris. When he meets Alice (the radiant Juliette Binoche), his brother's worldly, wary roommate, his puppy-dog obsessiveness and seductive but sincere tenderness slowly wins her over despite their age differences. But insular Martin keeps his own emotions wrapped up, even as he shoots to the top of modeling world, until his haunted past bursts out in a depression that threatens to consume him and Alice must reconnect him to his estranged family.

André Téchiné has delivered some of the most delicate character pieces in recent French cinema, most notably the coming-of-age drama Wild Reeds. Alice and Martin, authored with help from Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep), never quite comes together as smoothly as his best work; it ricochets from lovely romantic flirtations to tortured psychodrama to family melodrama while Téchiné's oblique, reserved direction observes without penetrating the heart of the drama. Loret's Martin is more enigma than character, but Amalric shows the same shaggy, understated charm he displayed in Late August, Early September and Binoche brings a sensitivity and toughness to the emotionally scuffed Alice. Her radiant presence gives the film its moments of emotional frisson a discreet, subtle power. --Sean Axmaker

Alice and Martin Reviews:
Needy
2005-04-15 - Juliette Binoche has become the Florence Nightingale of French movies. The characters she plays are always intense, emotionally present and available, always concerned, always willing to make things right, transcendentally beautiful: think all the way back to "Damage" or "Blue," in which she she takes on the emotional as well as the physical mantel of her dead husband's musical works.
Ever the caretaker, Binoche as Alice once again becomes attached to someone, Martin who loves her... but needs her more. As she says in "Alice et Martin," "I do what I can." And when Martin (Alexis Loret) tells her he hates her: "I don't care...I will always be here for you."
Emotionally intense, psychologically suspect, beautiful to look at, "Alice et Martin" never fails to keep your interest.
Director Andre Techine' is cagey and talented enough to know that the intensity of Alice and Martin's relationship will start to repel us, so he breaks away from them with charming scenes of Alice alone with Martin's mother (the luminous Carmen Maura) and scenes of Martin's father and his family.
Binoche is such a powerful actress that it takes an equally strong actor (as in the case of Maura) to successfully play a scene with her without fading into the woodwork. Unfortunately, Loret, in his first film role, is not her equal by any means. Loret does disturbed and emotionally whacked just fine but most of the time his performance is vacant and empty...without emotional currency.
"Alice et Martin" has flaws but nonetheless it's obvious and many charms, particularly the varied and poignant performance of Binoche, grab and envelop you despite them.


Simple Review
2003-02-01 - I do not have to use fancy or intelligent words to give my review to such an enjoyable romantic film like so many foreign film buffs love to do. Quite simply I would like to say this was a charged psychological drama that I think the actors did a fine job playing their roles. This was the first movie I had seen of Binoche since I did not count my falling asleep during "The English Patient" (yawn, what a snoozer, that was one boring chic flick); However, I found this movie to be quite entertaining and mysterious.

Not your typical Hollywood fairy tale
2002-05-27 - A romantic love affair that is against all odds. Intense Psyhchodrama and shocking symbolism (hence do not be eating during this movie) takes the viewer on a rollercoaster ride of suspense. Survival seems to be the necessity, but can one survive without love? The character Martin will try and the movie will keep you wondering.

Alice and a lot of pretense
2001-08-11 - Juliet Binoche makes any movie worth seeing and her performance here was exceptional. Unfortunately, the story is in places unbelievable and occasionally absurd. The actor who plays Martin does not often match the ability of Ms. Binoche. He has his moments but often comes off flat and boring.

The movie has a lot to recommend if you can get past the occasional posturing and the pretentious dialogue.

Crime and Punishment in Provincial France
2000-08-28 - When I first read a description of this film--man falls for his brother's friend, chaos ensues--I didn't think it sounded too promising. Then I noticed who directed it, André Téchiné ("Les Voleurs"), and who wrote the screenplay, Olivier Assayas ("Irma Vep").

I got more than I was expecting. Certainly, there's romance, between Alice (Juliette Binoche) and Martin (newcomer Alexis Loret), but that's not what it's really about. "Alice et Martin" plays more like a modern-dress "Crime and Punishment" than some torrid French romance, because its true subjects are regret and redemption, but Téchiné doesn't reveal until the end why Martin (Loret) is so tortured. He seems to have everything going for him, but inside he's wracked with guilt and eventually suffers a breakdown.

The story cuts deep and the acting is mostly excellent. At its worst, "Alice et Martin" suffers from an excess of plot--it could be shorter, it could drop a few extraneous details--but the film's unique structure serves the material well. The action starts in the recent past, moves forward to the present, moves back to the past again to show why Martin acts the way he does (he's harboring a horrible secret), and then returns to the present by which point our 20th-century Raskolnikov figures out what he needs to do to put his soul at rest.

Some may find "Alice et Martin" too slow and others may find the acting too flat--still others may prefer a torrid French romance--but fans of Binoche's subtle work in films like "Blue" will probably disagree. Loret, who looks a bit like Jeff Buckley, whose version of Nina Simone's "Lilac Wine" features on the soundtrack, is a real find. He's weird, handsome, and intense. Special bonus: the always-dependable Mathieu Amalric (Assayas' "Late August, Early September") as Alice's best friend, and Martin's half-brother, Benjamin. It's through Benjamin that Martin meets Alice, who helps him to become an adult in ways his parents never could.