Bel Ami

Period dramas have a reputation of being smarter than their contemporary piers. Bel Ami is proof that that reputation isn’t always deserved. Not only is it poorly conceived, it’s bland and boring as well, coming across as a period piece soap opera, offering some skin to get the R rating while playing mostly at the PG-13 level. There is a way to tell this story and make it engaging, even thought provoking, but directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod took the structure of the original Parisian novel and stripped it of any charm, subtlety and nuance, rushing through the plot and releasing a film that is dissatisfying in nearly every facet.

Robert Pattinson plays Georges Duroy, a poor former soldier recently arrived in Paris. By chance he runs into a former friend, Charles Forestier (Philip Glenister), who invites him to his home for dinner, gifting him some money to buy nice clothes for the occasion. Georges uses this social gathering to begin seducing the wealthy wives, including Charles’, to increase his social standing and finances. The first of these, Clotilde (Christina Ricci), uses her money to set up a safe house for the two to romantically meet away from prying eyes. From there, he weasels his way into Charles’ wife’s, Madeleine (Uma Thurman), arms, taking advantage of her writing talents to submit her words as his own in a newspaper article. When Charles succumbs to consumption, Georges marries the Madeleine. From there he moves on to Virginie, (Kristin Scott Thomas), wife to Monsieur Rousset, (Colm Meaney) publisher of the newspaper in Paris Georges writes for,  and in command of a large fortune. Georges uses these women with his final goal in mind, the daughter of Rousset and a means to a large inheritance. 

To say the film is shallow is to give it too much credit. There’s little of substance to be had here.  The entirety of it can be summed up in three simple phrases: amorality, sexuality and social status. Of the three, sexuality gets the front seat when, if things were properly conveyed, social status and the reasons Georges is so afraid of being at the bottom of the societal rung, should have been forefront. Instead, we get a couple of poorly done monologues by Pattinson to explain it all away, surrounded by scene after scene of him bedding the women who can get him what he really wants. We get a brief moment at the very beginning of the film juxtaposing the wealthy feasting on luxury foods while Georges looks on, starving, conveying the gap in status. It’s clumsy and heavy handed and it’s not enough to properly convey the true complexities of the time.

Robert Pattinson is poorly cast in this film. He was serviceable as the stone-faced Edward Cullens in Twilight but he brings the same range of emotions here and it doesn’t serve him well this time around. Instead of having a character we can understand and maybe even sympathize with, Georges is completely closed off and distant. This may work for his interactions with those around him but it keeps audiences at a distance and thus we cannot relate to him. A film like this needs to give us a protagonist we like, despite ourselves, and Pattinson is not that.

Of the three main girls, Christina Ricci comes off the best. Pattinson gives her nothing to work with and yet she manages to convey the complicated emotions of a married woman who has legitimately fallen in love with another man. Her devastation in the closing act when she discovers his ultimate goal is palpable and harrowing. Even better is her final moment minutes later as he walks down the aisle. She is smiling, putting on a facade that just barely belies how she’s really feeling underneath. It is a truly masterful performance, leagues better than the film it’s in. In contrast, Uma Thurman is equally blank as Madeleine and Kristin Scott Thomas is solid at first but transforms into a manic caricature in the final third. 

Because of Pattinson’s cardboard portrayal of Georges, another problem arises within this film. We cannot understand how any of these women fall for him in the first place. They all know who he is and what he represents, yet they fall into his arms in a way that is so unbelievable that it derails the entire film. He is so cold and passionless that it’s impossible to believe these women end up in his arms. The film expects us to buy into this conceit without giving us a single reason to believe it. This is further strained by the final act when Rousset’s daughter suddenly falls for and runs off with him. 

Bel Ami is not a complete waste of time. Christina Ricci is a delight to watch in a character that disappears too often in the plot. The setting and timeframe make for some beautiful backdrops and scenery. But poor execution, an underwritten script, and a bland performance by Pattinson overwhelm the positives and leave us with a boring film that commits one of the worst sins a film can commit: being forgettable.

Release Date: June 8, 2012

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rated: R

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci, Kristin Scott Thomas, Colm Meaney

Directed By: Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod