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God is Great and I'm Not stars Audry Tautou who soared to fame in her
wildly popular later film, Amelie.
As is usual with such "overnight success," Tautou actually has been on screen
for some years now and has a long list of credits. (See Gary Mairs' review of Venus Beauty Institute from 1999.)
God is Great, even with the commercial advantage of Tautou's newfound stardom,
had great difficulty finding an American distributor, which is probably more an indictment
of the current distribution system which leaves little room for imports than a reflection
on the film itself. While it is not by any means a film for the ages, it is a light
entertainment of some charm and surely superior to most of the comedies that fill the
multiplexes.
Michele (Tautou) is a twenty year old high fashion model who has just
had an abortion and dumped her boy friend. In her unhappiness, she turns to God, but the
Catholic faith of her childhood doesn't answer her spiritual need. She turns to Buddhism,
but tends to fall asleep during meditation: "All this positive energy is
exhausting!"
Then she meets Francois (Edouard Baer), a veteranarian and a
non-practicing Jew. It goes further than that, though, because Francois hides
his Jewish identity; he's a closeted Jew. Michele starts to read up on Judaism, more as a
new spiritual alternative than as a way to please Francois. On the contrary, her interest
and his state of denial combine to become the barricade that stands between them even as
they commence an affair. She hangs a mezuzah on the door of his apartment and he angrily
demands she take it down: "You want the whole building to know I'm Jewish?"
Director and co-writer Pascale Bailly also brings Michele's mother and
Francoise's parents into the story. The former is a suicidal depressive in a bad
marriage, hardly a role model for her young daughter. Aside from her negative example, she
adds little to the motivation, plot, or humor. Francoise's parents come on a visit from
their home in Israel; similarly, Bailly fails to make their presence significantly
meaningful.
At the heart of the film, then, is the conflict between Michele's ever
growing interest in Jewish ritual and Francoise's resistance. Somewhere underneath he
does have some strong feelings about his cultural identity. (His father is a Holocaust
survivor.) He emotionally criticizes Michele's use of the word "Holocaust,"
explaining the more acceptable "Shoah." But that's about the only hint that
Bailly provides. On the other hand, when they're watching TV together, she wants to see a
film about the Nazis (Lubitsch's dark comedy To Be or Not To Be), while he wants to watch Jaws. That joke is duplicated in an
argument about going to the movies to see Shoah
or a Godard film.
There are some funny bits such as Michele inadvertently lighting a
cigarette from the menorah, wrestling with the rules of what can or cannot be done on
Shabbat, and Francoise sneaking some food on Yom Kippur. Without question, Tautou and
Baer are charming and attractive actors.
But when Michele thinks she may be pregnant again, Bailly hasn't done
enough character-building groundwork to support the responses. She neither digs under the
surface of their differences nor manages to sufficiently ground their motivations. Other
characters slip in and out of the story without being developed or adding new levels or
complications of interest. The two leads flip back and forth between fighting and loving
with such frequency that it becomes a pattern without resolution, thus leaving the
overarching storyline somewhat flat and without tension.
God is Great displays the potential for a better movie than
what Bailly manages to deliver. At one point she uses a Woody Allen book as a prop. On the
one hand that's an homage; other the other, it could be read as presumptuous. In kindness,
read it as a goal to which this young director aspires.
- Arthur
Lazere
