In Nicole Garcia's PLACE VENDME, Catherine Deneuve delivers an exquisitely underplayed and delicately nuanced performance as the alcoholic Marianne. The problem in a nutshell is that her acting is the only reason to see the movie.
Early in the story, Marianne's husband of 18 years commits suicide. A diamond dealer, he had been caught selling stolen stones, which caused him to lose face at his firm although not be arrested. Although threatened with bankruptcy by her husband's partners, she refuses to sign over her shares in the firm. Having once been "in the trade" herself, she goes back to the slightly seedy marketing of diamonds to private customers in hotel rooms.
In her husband's secret compartment, she finds a stake, three sizable stones, to get her started back in the business. But with their Mafia connections, these large beauties are as hot as a firecracker, so no one reputable will buy them from her.
Much is made of Marianne's illness. Her husband points out that she has checked herself in and out of the clinic so often that she has only spent 17 nights at home in the past year. After starting back to work, she says that she is on the wagon, but hers is a strange sobriety. She still drinks all of the time, but, since she doesn't guzzle it down, she no longer shows signs of drunkenness.
Laurent Dailland's cinematography is heavy on the dark atmospherics with a muted color palette that accentuates the drab grays. He likes nothing better than to give us such hazy, underlit scenes that you wonder if there is a brownout. And the director sets such a languid pace that if a character fired a gun, the bullet would take a full two minutes to strike its victim.
The biggest cheat is that PLACE VENDME is the type of story in which you wait in vain for something to finally happen. Watching Deneuve at work is a treat, but it isn't enough.
PLACE VENDME runs 1:57. The film is in French with English subtitles. It is not rated but would probably be an R for brief violence and language and would be acceptable for teenagers.
