52 Films by Women: 'Lolo' by Julie Delpy

Entry #3 in 52 Films by Women. See all related posts by clicking here.

Lolo, the latest directorial effort from Julie Delpy, makes good on a lot of the comedic promise of the writer-director-actor's previous works, particularly the savvy culture-clash/relationship study 2 Days in Paris. Which is to say her gifts for conceptual and scene-level discernment often avoid an impulse towards the hackneyed tropes that have become mainstays in the genres she explores, even in the flawed but intriguing stranger-than-fiction account of Elizabeth Báthory's fall from royalty power in The Countess.  Lolo is reliable and entertaining in this regard, sparing none of the characters or relationships from displaying bitterness, anger, or pettiness while emerging as the lightest film to come from Delpy's filmography so far. In other ways, Lolo occasionally suffers from the sense that too little from the writing or scenario is able to conjure a specific idea about the characters or relationships that's worth savoring. I laughed a great deal, especially any scene that involves an exchange between Delpy and Karin Viard, who ingeniously refer to each other as clitoral and vaginal, respectively, but as the push-and-pull between the two loves of Delpy's character (her sweetly gullable boyfriend and her wicked, unambitious son) begins to get more complicated the movie finds itself hitting more broad strokes when it should be getting tighter. One can almost envision a dynamite comedy pilot with 30+ minutes shaved off (with a snappy opening credits sequence to boot!) that could lead to richer rewards with a season's worth of material to expand on the central dynamics, but as it stands Lolo is modestly satisfying and attains an effervescent quality that doesn't betray its dark take on the romantic comedy.