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Title: One Telling Too Many
Review: A Parisian Jewish lad is sent to the country during WWII, easily conceals his ethnicity, and returns home at war's end. Between his going and coming is a sequence of vignettes that become increasingly tiresome and meaningless. None of the characters gains anything in the way of wisdom, understanding, or wiles.Michel Simon is outstanding as the old man who gives the boy a temporary refuge, but Alain Cohen, as the youthful protagonist, appears to lack the ability to carry off the demands of his role. Or maybe the director intended his semi-autobiographical character to smile vapidly 90% of the time. Or maybe this English-speaking American reviewer just doesn't get it. Indeed, nearly every frame of this feature is full of subtitles, resulting in likely fatigue for a non-French-speaking viewer. There's nothing in the narrative to break the tedium, and thus the movie's 87 minutes seem much longer. In truth, not every story bears repeating.
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