Storyline

Simon is a sales representative about fifty. When Mickey, his cop friend, is being shot, he leaves everything to find the murderers. Two years before, Marx, an old gambler, met Frederic, a young man that does not look very smart and started to follow him everywhere (as a puppy) and changed his name to Johnny to please Marx. Of course, Simon's story is related with Marx and Johnny's one. But the thriller is only a pretext for a psychological description of the three main characters.—Yepok

Plot Keywords

criminal, apprentice, police officer, salesman, best friend, creative, suspenseful, emotional, france, hospital, street, hideout, office, murder investigation, crime, mentorship, grief, friendship, unlikely hero, mystery, pursuit, underdog, transformation, 1990s

Short Review

Peculiar crime thriller from Jacques Audiard. Simon (Jean Yanne), a portly middle-aged travelling salesman, becomes embroiled in a murder mystery after the shooting of his police officer friend Mickey. Choosing to invigorate his tired life with direction and a sense of purpose Simon sets about looking for clues to the seemingly professional killer, leading him into the dark criminal underworld. This is told in tandem with the tale of Marx (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Frederic (Mathieu Kassovitz), an odd pair who encounter each other while hitchhiking - Marx a bitter old man, and Frederic a haplessly naive teenager who doesn't appear to have a thought in his head. As they travel the backroads and motorways fleeing from one scrape to the next Mark develops a reluctant paternal affection for Frederic.Despite a fairly conventional set-up See How They Fall is ostensibly about men recapturing their youth vicariously through young companions, complete with a strong subtext of repressed homosexuality. An interesting conceit but the film just feels far too vague, as if there isn't actually any depth there at all. The two narratives are both engaging, and their march towards conclusion never allows the pace to drop too drastically, but as a whole it isn't gripping enough to work as a thriller nor contemplative enough as a study of men. Falling somewhere between the two it delivers a subversive take on the crime genre that never wholly satisfies.The odd-couple pairing of Frederic and Marx, with its defiant unpredictability, is the stronger of the two stories. Traipsing from one den of iniquity to the next, gambling and fighting all the while, it's impossible to see where they're headed, but the chemistry between Trintignant and Kassovitz is so strong that being in the presence of the couple is reward enough. Kassovitz in particular is excellent as the puppy-dog-eyed youngster cast adrift and woefully naive in the seedy world. The performances are all strong enough to provide several impressive humane moments, but none of the characters feels particularly well-developed, preventing the film carrying the emotive weight and intrigue it promises. Ultimately See How They Fall isn't articulate or dynamic enough to achieve all its goals, but it's still an appealing, peculiar little film that hints at the greater things to come from Audiard.

Trailer

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