Redoubtable

Michel Hazanavicius returns to the realm of movies about movies with his Jean-Luc Godard comedy-biopic Redoubtable. Specifically, this is late 60s Godard, at the height of his powers and acclaimed across the world as one of cinema’s greatest auteurs. Despite his arrogant façade, the filmmaker (played by Louis Garrel) remains existentially insecure about his own worth. His youth is fading, and with it his sense of freedom and purpose. To cling to it a little longer, he latches on to student protests and marries 18-year-old actress Anne Wiazemsky (Martin).

Redoubtable is a charm offensive. Anne and Jean-Luc’s relationship unfolds across a series of sketches, punching gleefully through the fourth wall time and again by addressing the audience directly, mocking cinematic conventions or subtitling conversations with the characters’ real intentions. Hazanavicius knows when he’s being cute but never pushes far enough to become smug, even if Redoubtable is also never quite as insightful or as funny as it might have been.

It falls enjoyably in the middle, perhaps the place Godard himself would have most disdained. That too seems appropriate.