REVIEWED - RUSSIAN DOLLS/LES POUPÉES RUSSES: Cédric Klapisch's meandering, cluttered sequel to 2002's Pot Luck - in which annoying students from many countries faffed pointlessly around Barcelona - is punctuated with scenes from an awful TV drama being written by its priapic protagonist. The historical romance, is, it seems, hampered by clumsy narrative seizures and a propensity towards lazy cliches.
Unhappily for Klapisch and his talented cast, the excerpts meld all too comfortably with the soap opera antics that surround them. Indeed should you wish to make a satirical drama about a French film-maker directing a Europudding that's all location and no story, sequences from Russian Dolls would serve usefully as heightened illustrations of what such a protagonist might produce.
It may come as a surprise to learn that Romain Duris was part of the cast of Pot Luck. But, after a few minutes of the sequel, it's apparent why he had to wait until The Beat My Heart Skipped to gain proper stardom. Saddled with mechanical dialogue and hindered by a face unsuited to light comedy, Duris looks uncomfortable as a cynical writer torn between (at least) three women.
Kelly Reilly, whose scenes have an inertness that suggests the director left the Anglophone cast to themselves, plays Duris's collaborator on the script. Lucy Gordon turns up as a supermodel in need of a ghostwriter for her autobiography. Audrey Tautou is the hero's oldest buddy. Who, we are encouraged to wonder, will this Gallic Alfie eventually settle upon?
The film, though shot on the flattest, drabbest digital video, is certainly not short of gimmicks. Virtually every time somebody leaves the frame they are heading for another European city: Paris, London, St Petersburg. Sometimes the film speeds up; at others the screen is broken up into a busy mosaic. This superficial inventiveness cannot conceal the fact that nothing much happens over a slack two hours.
Russian Dolls does, however, feel a little less irritating than its predecessor. Mind you, that may just be because it's not about bleeding students.
