Frankie

The approach taken by director Ira Sachs is utterly sincere and so utterly humourless, though the performances are quietly compelling...

Even within the breezy parameters of the travelogue movie genre (think Eat Pray Love or Under the Tuscan Sun), this sun-kissed melodrama is decidedly lacking in drive.

It has its pleasures but after the nuance and emotional hits of Love Is Strange and Little Men, Frankie is a disappointment. Not even la Reine, Isabelle Huppert, can elevate this one.

A tad disappointing from Sachs, whose characters usually have more humour, honesty and heart.

Half the cast come to the rescue, guaranteeing, at least, a pleasant time.

Taking a role designed to collapse the divide between performer and character as opportunity to uncover new levels on naturalism, Huppert offers another beautifully modulated turn in a part that is primarily reactive.

In a transcendently luminescent performance, the brilliant Isabelle Huppert plays a dying French actress who has gathered her large complicated family together for one last holiday.

Another low-key gem from writer-director Ira Sachs.

Frankie is a symphony of light and color, expressiveness in gesture and speech

I believe someone like Rohmer could have made this into a great film.