“French Exit” (MA) ***

MICHELLE Pfeiffer was in her early sixties when she played Frances in this unhurried film who, after her husband’s death, in a single sentence that is the leitmotif for Azazel Jacobs’ film, “My plan was to die before the money ran out”, inherited a lot of money and didn’t.

“French Exit” is a pleasant, somewhat disjointed and ultimately minimalist movie that says little if anything about growing old. 

Frances sells her Manhattan residence and, with her adult son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) and her blue-eyed black tom cat, moves at short notice to Paris to spend the rest of her life while doing her best to get rid of the money. And, when it’s all gone, remains alive.

Is the film a portrait of a failure? Yes, but Frances’ disappointment doesn’t inhibit her from gathering friends and staff while her stack of 100-franc banknotes slowly dribbles away. 

Patrick DeWitt’s screenplay, based on his novel, takes its time showing her progress, from a trans-Atlantic steamship voyage to the accretion of the circle of friends who keep her company in the Paris apartment. Malcolm is her chief concern. She finally tells him the circumstances of his begetting and birth. 

Malcolm’s New York girlfriend arrives with a husband in tow and decides that she prefers Malcolm. 

Hangers-on, including the private detective Julius (Isaach De Bankolé) whom she employs, and the medium Madeleine (Danielle Macdonald), drink and eat at her expense. When she’s alone, she communes with the candle through which her husband’s spirit visits her.

These off-beat elements and others combine to deliver 110 pleasant minutes in which not much happens.

Ms Pfeiffer is a fine actress. She carries “French Exit”, but when it’s over, and Frances still hasn’t died, you could be forgiven for wondering what it was about.

At Palace Electric and Dendy